Donna Karan designs for healing
Fashion designer, Donna Karan
When I stayed in hospital for my breast cancer surgery, I made my way most days to a small oratory, a sanctuary in the hospital. I was reminded of this as I watched a TEDMED video of Fasion designer, Donna Karan, who founded the Urban Zen Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to promote patient advocacy and well-being in health care, integrating alternative approaches such as yoga.
In a recent TEDMED video she talks about sponsoring an initiative at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York that’s seeking to “treat the patient, not the disease.” This includes a “sanctuary” in the hospital where patients and their loved ones, as well as doctors and nurses, and go to find peace and calm.
Karan says that the initiative was born out of frustration that so much was missing from traditional Western practices of medicine. While powerful science and pharmaceuticals are of course vital in curing disease, Karan noticed there was a distinct lack of healing of the heart and the spirit. ‘We must treat the patient with the same passions with which we fight the disease,’ Karan insists.
The designer spent several years at her husband’s bedside while he underwent treatment for lung cancer. “I appreciated the advancements of western medicine but I immediately understood that it was Stephen’s cancer that was being treated and not my husband. So I brought in my posse of healers, yoga therapist, essential oil therapists, acupuncturists, Chinese medicine specialists and nutritional counselors. I saw and experienced the healthcare system very intimately and I knew I had to get involved” said Karan in an interview in SU2C magazine.
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TEDMED is an annual event that brings together dozens of luminaries from a variety of fields to “demonstrate the intersection and connections between all things medical and health care related: from personal health to public health, devices to design and Hollywood to the hospital.” TEDMED 2010 will take place from October 26 to 29 in San Diego, California.
Many of us, like Donna Karan, know that medicine has a tendency to treat the disease, not the patient. Before each of my 10 breast cancer surgeries, I used a custom hypnosis tape made for me by an experienced hypnotherapist. Each tape addressed my concerns for that surgery.
After one surgery, the anesthesiologist waited until I was out of recovery and stopped by to talk to me. He was truly puzzled at how little anesthesia he had to use to keep me at the level the surgeon required. When I told him I’d listened to an hypnosis tape every day for 2 weeks prior to surgery & the tape said I would begin to relax on a muscular skeletal level, therefore requiring less anesthesia, plus I would begin to produce my own pain endorfins, thereby needing less pain medication, he was stunned.
While he’d read about such cases, I was the first patient he’d personally encountered who’d used hypnosis. He became a believer as did a nurse on a subsequent surgery.
After my 7 hour DIEP flap reconstruction, the nurse brought in a “new” bag of pain meds. When she saw my bag was full, she decided another nurse must have already replaced it. Both my husband & I assured her this was the bag I came out of recovery with, but she insisted that was impossible. I would have blown through that 1st bag because of the pain. Sure enough, she checked her records, and it WAS the only bag of pain meds I’d been given. She was astonished. She called all the other nurses in to hear my story.
I believe we’ve only begun to access the many mind/body connections and want to encourage everyone to find a hypnotherapist or a Guided Imagery professional. They can help you over mental as well as physical trauma.
XOXOXO,
Brenda
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Thanks so much Brenda for taking the time to leave such a comprehensive comment – it really added great information to this post!
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The hospital where I have had my surgeries and chemo sessions has a lovely healing garden where my husband and I go every time when we need to wait a while between procedures. It has a beautiful fountain, fireplace, lots of comfortable seating, a grand piano, lush greenery everywhere and a relaxing atmosphere. It’s an unexpected sanctuary in a sterile hospital setting and we both love it. It helps us relax a bit and prepare mentally for whatever we are facing next.
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Nancy this sounds just beautiful and what a wonderful think to have in the hospital for patients.
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