Breast cancer, diagnosed in Sept. 1999, had spread to LaShawn Ross' spine, skull and rib cage by May 2005. Six months later, she was in a back brace and wheelchair recovering from a spinal fracture; she was bald and undergoing still more chemotherapy and radiation.
"I had lost all feeling from my waist down. My feet were curled under and my leg muscles were beginning to waste away because I couldn't move them," says Ross, 39, who lives in Fort Worth, Texas.
Then, Lesley Hunt walked into her treatment room at the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders and offered to massage Ross' feet while the cancer-fighting drugs dripped through the port in her chest. It was the first of many massages, as well as sessions in reflexology, guided imagery, meditation and physical therapy, that would eventually help get Ross back on her feet.
"I think the massages helped relax my body enough to allow the chemotherapy to work," Ross says. "I think your body gets real tense because of everything that's going on - all the different medicines and treatments - and starts fighting against them. Massage and guided imagery help you to stay positive and focus on healing. I'm stage 4, considered terminal, now, but the cancer is pretty much holding still except for a tumor on my skull, and I'm still taking oral chemo pills for that."
Hunt is a CancerGuide "navigator" at the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders in Fort Worth. The CancerGuides program was developed by the nonprofit Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, DC, to give cancer patients, physicians and other caregivers reliable information on complementary and alternative therapies. Hunt is also a nurse and massage therapist who believes the mind, heart and spirit play an integral role in the body's physical healing and recovery process.
"I think it gives mental, physical and emotional comfort to be nurtured," Hunt says. "I work with patients before and after surgery, chemotherapy and radiation to help them visualize what they want from treatment. It helps with anxiety and sleep problems and keeps the pain level down."
The Careity Foundation of Fort Worth, in partnership with the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, provides the funding for these support services, which also include nutritional counseling, pain management, training and education for caregivers and assistance in navigating the health care system.
Lisa Conley, a 48-year-old registered nurse and single mother of five, was told she had breast cancer last April, underwent a lumpectomy and chemotherapy and is just finishing radiation.
"I've been doing yoga and NIA [Neuromuscular Integrative Action] with Cancer Care Services and just started massage and now acupuncture here [at the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders]," Conley said this month. "The mind-body treatments help you relax and think positive. Yesterday, I was so relaxed with acupuncture that I felt like I might melt into a puddle and slip right off the table."
In group and individual counseling sessions, Conley also has learned to use meditation and guided imagery - walking barefoot through smooth, warm sand on a beautiful beach, for instance - to take her away mentally to a safe place where she feels comfortable and can just give her cares away for a while.
"Feeling overwhelmed is a perfectly normal response to breast cancer, especially if you are the primary caregiver in the family," says Robyn Young, director of breast cancer services at the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders. "Taking care of yourself should be of great importance. One of the first things I do with a new patient is set her up with our massage therapist to talk about what images are peaceful and safe for this particular patient so she can go inside her own mind to that place, anytime she needs it. It gives her back some control over her life. Generally, patients need a lot less pain medication if they have some control.
"One question breast cancer patients all need to ask is, 'What else can I do to make this better? Can I walk? Can I take vitamins? Do yoga?'" Young says. "I honestly think my walkers do better, have less side effects ... I can't explain why one patient gets mouth sores and another doesn't, but for some, yoga seems to make a difference; so does eating lots of fruits and vegetables, along with whole grains and protein, exercising and getting enough sleep."
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would