The chemo signature

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS ABOUT THEREPEUTIC TOUCH

Compiled by Carolyn Buchanan & Sue Frid

In Touch, Vol. XIV, No. 2, Summer 2002

Question: Have any worked with post-chemotherapy patients and if so do they find the chemo signature hanging on for months or even a year or more after the treatment? How long does the field take to return to normalcy?

From Barbara Janelle M.A.

In November 2000, I began working with a woman who had gone through surgery and chemotherapy for ovarian cancer a year and a half before. She complained of being very tired all the time and having no energy to do anything beyond keeping up with her job. Her field felt like it was currently undergoing chemotherapy: it had that strong tingling, disordered, almost chaotic feel to it that I find in fields of people undergoing chemotherapy. I was very surprised and wondered how long the impact of chemotherapy hangs on in a field.

It wasn’t until mid-March of this year, almost three months after the start of Therapeutic Touch treatments given approximately twice a week, that the chemotherapy signature disappeared from the field. Within the first month, this woman noticed a slow increase in her energy level, so that now almost four months later she does not need daily naps, is taking increasingly longer hikes and is gardening.

It occurs to me how wise it would be for post-cancer patients to consider weekly sessions in some complementary health discipline simply to help their fields and bodies return to a normal healthy state.