Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/621015
"At the end of her life, Mom was agitated. She was frightened, sad, angry, and upset. Steve came to give her a massage, and what happened then was truly amazing! I was holding my mom's tight hands, and I felt her completely relax. I relaxed with her, and it was as though we were transported somewhere, together, in a total state of relaxation and meditation. I have gotten to that state before on a couple of occasions, but to do it with my mom, at such a crucial time at the end of her life, was such a gift. She never tensed up again. She passed away very peacefully and left our house with a smile on her face." How do we end up with our particular massage careers? Not just the career in massage, but the one within massage: the focus that we choose, or that chooses us. Sports, deep tissue, relaxation, myofascial release, geriatric, pregnancy, and who knows how many more. In spas, on cruise ships, in doctors' offices, and physical therapy practices. In home offices and airports. It's all massage. If we're lucky, we find the focus we want, maybe need. I have a regular massage practice I love, but much of what I do as a massage therapist is with people who have advanced cancer, often people near death, through that nonprofit program called The Hand to Heart Project. Pat's story explains why. A WINDING ROAD I came to this work unexpectedly. After more than two decades in newspaper journalism, I began a massage training program with no thought that I would do anything specific. Just massage. But within two months of starting school, three people in my life were diagnosed with cancer. That led me to a connection with a therapist who had been providing massage to cancer patients for more than 20 years (and is still doing it more than 15 years later). I began working with her once a week massaging patients, mostly oncology patients, at a nearby medical center. Eventually, I began thinking it would be nice to offer massage to people when they left the hospital to recover, or to continue their treatment from home, or to die. One afternoon, I went to see a patient who was about to be sent home under hospice care. She was a single mom in her 30s, and she had painful bone cancer. After I'd done maybe 20 minutes of mostly neck and shoulder massage, she sighed and said, "For the first time in months, I don't hurt anywhere." She also said she couldn't afford to have a massage therapist come to her home. That did it. The beginnings of The Hand to Heart Project can be traced to the days after that experience, and to the help of a couple of clients who had become friends, and who offered to provide invaluable support. I have counted my blessings many times since then. My massage career is as varied as possible, but with a heavy emphasis on working with people who face enormous challenges. I have great faith in the power of touch and compassionate presence to provide comfort. The number of people being trained in oncology massage today is increasing by leaps and bounds, it seems, which can't be a bad thing, even if many or most of them don't end up working much in that field. I went about it differently, though. The nearly 10 years I spent at the medical center seeing patients one afternoon each week amounted to an apprenticeship. Over the years, I saw people with every imaginable type of cancer—from the common to the unusual. Colon cancer that never showed up in the patient's colon, but did produce a tumor in the woman's right orbital bone. A rare eye cancer. Breast, lung, and brain cancers of all types. Ovarian and endometrial cancers. Melanoma in a young woman who was the first person I worked on who was dying of cancer and who was younger than my son—a sobering experience. Stage IV lung cancer that never appeared in the patient's lungs, but was instead diagnosed because it had spread to, and destroyed, his left femur. The patients varied even more than the cancers. A middle-aged woman who had lived a holistic, organic life, and who cried and cried because she felt she had no choice but to allow the poison of chemotherapy into her body. A young woman approaching her death who was incredibly grateful and gracious, never sounding bitter or angry, and generous of spirit to the moment she died. A new mother who was dying of breast cancer that had been diagnosed while she was breastfeeding, and who delayed treatment until 94 m a s s a g e & b o d y w o r k j a n u a r y / f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 The Hand to Heart Project Founded: 2007 Goal: Provide between 300–400 in-home visits per year to those who are ill or dying