Networks ease way for cancer patients

By Keri Brenner

As Bobbi Illing and Sheri Zimny will tell you, a cancer diagnosis puts your life in a tailspin. The last thing you are thinking about is whether to make an appointment for a massage or where to go to take a yoga class.

You are worried, primarily, about when your life will get back to normal - or wondering whether it ever will. Your hair is falling out, you are tired and sluggish.

"The biggest part for me is that I needed to learn to breathe again," said Illing, 61, a Tumwater real estate agent and author who was diagnosed this year with breast cancer.

Though Illing and Zimny said they knew that complementary therapies such as guided meditation, acupuncture, chiropractic, tai chi, nutritional counseling, herbal remedies or acupressure might help them feel better, they didn't have those practitioners on their speed-dial.

However, both have found their way to two new services in South Sound that are designed to do all of the practitioner-locating legwork for cancer patients in advance. The services - Sound Cancer Connections based at Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia, and a new holistic cancer support group forming at Capital Medical Center on Olympia's west side - are setting up networks of integrative medicine practitioners who want to help ease the way for cancer patients.

"There is a change of philosophy occurring within our medical community," said Rosemary Spyhalsky, nursing coordinator for Sound Cancer Connections. "We are not only telling patients we believe in this type of care, but we are showing them that we believe in it enough to offer i t in the same building right alongside their conventional cancer treatments."

Zimny, 35, of Olympia, said a friend at work told her about a gentle yoga class for cancer patients offered through Sound Cancer Connections.

Zimny, who cannot do any impact movement because of injuries cancer caused to bones in her back, enrolled in the Sound Cancer Connections yoga class in October. It was $80 for eight weeks, she said.

The class, taught by Joanna Cashman of Wild Grace Arts Yoga & Dance in Olympia, helped her feel more flexible, Zimny said. She plans to sign up again when new classes start in January.

"It teaches you some good relaxation, and just de-stressing," said Zimny, who, like Illing, went through chemotherapy and radiation.

Dr. Evan Hirsch, who has a private holistic medical practice in Olympia, is medical director for Sound Cancer Connections. Spyhalsky said she and Hirsch screen all of the practitioners before they join the program to make sure they are qualified and that they are familiar with how to adapt their services to people undergoing conventional cancer treatments.

"We make it so the patients and the medical community can trust the providers and modalities we've created," she said. So far, Sound Cancer Connections - which draws on the resources of Providence St. Peter Hospital, RadiantCare Radiation Oncology and Providence Western Washington Oncology - offers programs in yoga, acupuncture, nutrition services and massage.

More classes and services are planned, such as qi gong, a type of Chinese martial arts that has a healing component, Spyhalsky said.

Illing, who is undergoing treatment at Capital Medical Center, is organizing her own version of an integrative holistic cancer support network.

Working with staff at Capital Medical Center, Capital Oncology and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Illing is setting up a bi-monthly support group to introduce her fellow cancer patients to the complementary therapies she has found helpful. The group, expected to launch early next year, likely will meet on alternate Thursday evenings at Capital Medical Center.

"Before you have cancer, you just don't think about things like this," Illing said. Illing says she wants others to have it all set up in advance so they don't have to spend extra time and energy searching for help like she did.

"Meditation makes the process of chemo a thousand times easier," said Illing, whose friend Ann Karpel, a marriage and family therapist in Clark County, visited Illing weekly during her chemotherapy to offer guided meditation sessions.

Isabel Keeffe, who does a Jap anese acupressure therapy called Jin Shin Jyutsu, gave Illing regular treatments as well.

Illing also hooked up with massage therapist Rebecca Noble, proprietor of The Massage Place in west Olympia.

Noble says massage is especially valuable because it reminds cancer patients of the feelings of pleasure and relaxation they used to feel in their bodies before the cancer.

"With massage, people get a gentle touch instead of being poked and prodded as with the cancer treatments," Noble says. "It helps to soothe them, to get a sense of their body that it is not just a cancer body - it's their body again."

Other practitioners who might speak to the Capital Medical Center group are Dr. Angela Zechman, a weight management specialist and nutritionist, and Curtis Eschels, a licensed acupuncturist at Acupuncture Health Center in Olympia.

Illing said the support group not only will help people cope with chemo and radiation, but will establish a basis for a healthy life after cancer treatments are finished.

Often, conventional treatments end and people are left on their own to pick up the pieces of their former lifestyles.

"The new face of cancer is not the one that we grew up with - that it's terminal," Illing said. "The new face of cancer is that we get healed and then go on to live healthy lives."

Keri Brenner writes for The Olympian. She is a licensed acupuncturist in Oregon and holds a master's degree in Oriental medicine and acupuncture from the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine in Portland. She can be reached at 360-754-5435 or kbrenner@theolympian.com.