Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/149404
While oncology massage is offered at several of the country's large children's hospitals, it is still a rare commodity outside of hospitals. With Lucy's passing in 2006 at age 12, her mother Beecher Grogan started the Lucy's Love Bus program to help other children. Lucy Grogan, for whom the Lucy's Love Bus program was named, knew how important massage was to her during her fight with cancer, and wanted other children to have access to integrative therapies, too. clients, too. Still, those who do this work love the unique rewards it offers. "I know it can be daunting to work with children who are diagnosed with cancer," says Darren Moskowitz, a licensed massage therapist and owner of Wholebody in Burlington, Vermont, who has worked with Lucy's Love Bus since 2010. "But each time I work with new patients, [my] fear and discomfort dissipate because I know what I'm doing is making a huge difference in their life and their family's lives. The immediate results of the work outweigh any other considerations." Moskowitz is no stranger to chronic pain or serious illness. A severe back injury in 1997 introduced him to the power of bodywork, which allowed him to heal without surgery. He graduated from the Sarasota School of Massage in 1998, only to be diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1999. He was hospitalized at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, where some of the first research on oncology massage was done, and where he later ended up getting his training in oncology massage therapy. Sloan-Kettering offered many complementary therapies "to augment my intense and radical oncology treatment," Moskowitz says. Ultimately, the oncology treatment cured his cancer, but it was "the supportive care of massage therapy and other complementary therapies that got me through each day." "An Absolute Blessing" Jillian Ayer, a licensed massage therapist in Hingham, Massachusetts, calls pediatric oncology massage "an absolute blessing" to a child she worked with, to the girl's family, and to herself. She is also a provider for Lucy's Love Bus, which connected her with a 6-year-old client who ultimately did not survive an inoperable brain tumor. The child's family traveled from their home in South America to a relative's home in the Boston area in order to bring their daughter to Children's Hospital. Ayer provided oncology massage to the girl at home and in the hospital, both while the child was conscious and, later, while she was in a coma. Ayer even provided massage to her on the day that life support was removed, and also massaged the child's grandmother and younger sibling at that time. Formerly an advocate for children hospitalized with serious illnesses, Ayer offers an interesting perspective on the role of pediatric oncology massage therapy. Although doctors are doing life-saving work, Ayer says they do not have time to slow down and listen extensively to patients and families. Parents of children with cancer are also stressed and anxious, and often unable to provide the kind of comfort that they want for their children. Offering massage to children, and sometimes working on the parents, too—or showing parents how to do some safe massage techniques for their www.abmp.com. See what benefits await you. 75