The Art of Healing & Hope
The IU Cancer Center's CompleteLife program offers patients diverse
and creative ways to deal with their disease.
Christine Shipley is happier at age forty-three than she has ever
been. Just one year ago she was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer.
She had a huge mass on her ovaries and the cancer had metastasized
to her liver, kidneys and chest cavity. She underwent radical surgery
and sixty-nine chemotherapy infusions. She was hospitalized during
the therapy numerous times for complications. She had shingles,
lost her waist-length black hair, lost her job and insurance benefits,
and later exceeded her Medicaid limit.
She credits three things with getting her through the ordeal: God,
her family and the CompleteLife program at the Indiana University
Cancer Center.
Mrs. Shipley praises Shelley Johns, PsyD, a clinical psychologist
with CompleteLife, for making the ordeal of cancer an experience
that improved her life rather than crushing it. "She helped
me realize my life will never be the same. Realizing that was the
hardest part for me, but that doesn't mean my life can't be better,"
says Mrs. Shipley.
CompleteLife was conceived by Larry Cripe, MD, assistant professor
of medicine and a hematologist/oncologist at the IU Cancer Center.
A professed practitioner of conventional medicine, Dr. Cripe also
believes that complete patient care must look beyond the disease
to the whole person. Individuals are more than their disease, they
are the sum of a whole that includes spiritual, cognitive, social
and emotional as well as physical elements.
A Complete Start
Ask Dr. Cripe what inspired him to develop CompleteLife and he
answers in one word: death. When he expands on the answer, a nineteen-year-old
girl terminally ill with acute lymphocytic leukemia figures prominently.
She was a student at the University of Notre Dame and succumbed
to her disease after nine months of wrenching therapy, including
a bone marrow transplant. Modern conventional medicine had failed
her. Dr. Cripe sat with her as she prepared to go home, where her
life would end, away from all the marvels of medical technology.
Their conversation steered toward more personal things.
"I realized later that for those moments we were two human
beings sharing the tragedy of being human, and I became concerned
that perhaps my practice was not human enough," he says. "It
occurred to me that in the hustle and bustle of modern medicine,
perhaps we sometimes fail to provide enough attention to the humanity
of our patients.
"I believe strongly that some day we will be able to offer
better treatments, but people are still going to be diagnosed with
cancer and that's a very disruptive experience. It's not fair that
we're not trying to make that better. With CompleteLife we are trying
to improve the experience of cancer. No matter how good the medicines
are, it still is going to be a scary experience."
A Stronger Fight
Dr. Johns is one member of the CompleteLife team who sees patients
from physician referrals and self-referrals. She also meets with
patients' family members to help them sort through issues. Part
of her role, Dr. Johns says, is to help people "process their
thoughts and feelings about their cancer so they feel more empowered
to fight their disease and maximize their quality of life."
Providing comfort through distraction is the goal of two other
CompleteLife programs - music and art.
If music is a language all its own then Debra Burns, PhD, MT-BC,
assistant research scientist at the Indiana University School of
Nursing, is multilingual. Dr. Burns is a music therapist who has
had music in her life for as long as she can remember. Her goal
is simple: use music to ease the experience of cancer therapy.
"Music therapy helps people be as well as they can be,"
Dr. Burns says. Music therapy can be helpful in symptom management
such as decreasing pain perception, decreasing anxiety and depression
and improving immune function. The results of her interactions with
patients are part of her post-doctoral research fellowship with
the Behavioral Cooperative Oncology Group at the Walther Cancer
Institute, which funds her research in this area.
Some patients find comfort in making music. One patient who is
a professional jazz violinist brought his instrument to the infusion
area, where Dr. Burns would accompany him with her guitar, much
to the delight of other patients receiving chemotherapy. Another
patient fulfilled a life-long dream of learning to play the flute,
which also improved her breathing - a physical problem that had
persisted since she had a mastectomy.
But patients do not have to sing or play an instrument to participate
in music therapy, she notes. Just listening to favorite music can
alter mood, improve breathing and produce a multitude of other positive
physical results.
Dr. Burns' positive experiences with patients are lengthy. "Ever
since I heard of music therapy it has been my dream to bring it
to this campus," she says.
Creative Healing
Another component of CompleteLife designed to stimulate the creative
life of patients is Creating Hope, an independent not-for-profit
organization which is supported by CompleteLife. The program's founder
and "art director" is Jeanette Shamblen, a former information
technology manager for a global finance company and a breast cancer
patient. She discovered painting helped her through the long, sleepless
nights resulting from her chemotherapy.
Mrs. Shamblen says that she began her own "therapeutic"
treatment with her children's paint sets. Soon, her sister gave
her better quality paints and her creative side grew. Painting made
her sense of time disappear. It alleviated much of her pain and
anxiety. It instilled hope.
Mrs. Shamblen wanted to share her cathartic experience with other
cancer patients because she believes self-expression and creativity
can help people cope with cancer by giving them an element of control
over their lives. Her organization provides cancer patients watercolor
kits or modeling clay kits free of charge. Many days she or other
of the group's volunteers can be found at the IU Cancer Center distributing
the kits and helping patients paint their own bookmarks during their
time in the infusion or waiting areas.
"Some people need to find the spiritual side of what healing
is about, others need to find the creative side. Creating Hope seeks
to do that," says Mrs. Shamblen.
Another important facet to spiritual support is provided by the
Rev. Connie Smith, MDiv, who leads the chaplaincy component of CompleteLife.
She meets with patients, family members and oncology staff to provide
solace. She summarizes her CompleteLife duties as "prayer and
presence," an approach that involves hours of listening and
praying to help those with a spiritual need "determine how
they find meaning in what they are going through."
Rev. Smith, who is an ordained minister and a board certified chaplain,
says her job is inspirational to her as well as, she hopes, to the
cancer patients she talks with in the infusion area, in medical
ICU and other areas of the hospital. "Amazing things happen
every day," she says. "It's a real privilege - it can
be a painful privilege and it can be a celebratory privilege."
CompleteLife still is young in development. Plans to bring touch
therapy, including massage, acupuncture and other similar therapies,
into the program are on the drawing board. Nutrition counseling
to assist patients with their dietary needs during treatment is
available, as are a number of education seminars. Patients also
may be referred to a fitness program developed specifically for
cancer patients at the National Institute of Fitness and Sport.
Addressing patients' non-conventional needs, Dr. Cripes notes,
will one day become the norm in medicine. "Success to me will
be when physicians talk to patients about spiritual distress and
tell them what resources we can provide, just as naturally as we
would order a CT scan."
Editor's Note:
For more information about the CompleteLife program, contact Shelley
A. Johns, PsyD, at (317) 278-6705. For more information and to view
artistic work of Jeanette Shamblen, visit her Web site at www.creating-hope.org.
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