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Carmichael Times

A Home for Hope

Oct 13, 2017 12:00AM ● By By Jacqueline Fox

David Dowdy, president and Joan Marie, vice president of Healing Hands-Healing Hearts. Photo by Jacqueline Fox

Healing Hands-Healing Hearts Opens Carmichael Center

Carmichael, CA (MPG) - For many terminally ill patients, the process of transition often involves prolonged pain, fear and anxiety, among other things, creating difficult end-of-life decisions for caretakers, as well, and detracting from what should by right be a peaceful experience. But this need not be the case.

Healing Hands-Healing Hearts, a non-profit organization providing on-call, certified touch therapy to critically, chronically and terminally ill patients across Sacramento and Kern counties, has opened its first brick and mortar center in Carmichael, roughly seven years after being taken over by Bakersfield resident David Dowdy.  The non-profit is now sharing space with Compassion Central (formerly Enter the Orchid), run by Joan Marie, which offers meditative massage classes, meditation and yoga workshops, among other holistic-based programs.  Training courses for touch therapists will also now be held at the new location for Healing Hands.

The touch therapy, explains Dowdy, is intended to supplement traditional medical and end-of-life care processes. Therapy is provided in patients’ homes, long-term care and hospice facilities. The goal is to deliver them an additional remedy for relief from pain, fear, anxiety and isolation, and, in many cases, provide patients with a channel for spiritual reconnection, while gaining a renewed sense of dignity.

Therapists certified under the nonprofit’s “Touch Therapy for the Terminally Ill” program include certified nurse’s assistants (CNAs), massage therapists, energy workers and individuals, many of whom are family members of the terminally ill who simply want to learn how to help guide their loved-ones through a more peaceful, pain-free transition.  Being part of the transition process, says Dowdy, helps family members shift their focus away from the fears connected to loss toward what should be a joyful celebration of life.

“For the family member, this is a way to get involved in the experience and feel more empowered,” says Dowdy. “So much of the time they sit by the bedside or near a person in a wheelchair and feel totally hopeless. Often when I’m visiting a patient, I invite them to stand on the other side of the bed and mimic what I’m doing, learn the process. You’d be surprised how much relief this gives them and how much it impacts the patient’s ability to reconnect with their own mind, body and spirit so that they can make that transition in peace.”

Touch therapy is different from massage therapy.  It doesn’t involve the use of oils or creams.  Patients do not need to disrobe and they are “treated” just where they are, whether that’s a bed or a wheel chair, eliminating the need for to be moved from one place to another.  The approach to dying is holistic and works through a combination of traditional massage with touch pressure along various points on the body.  Treatments, says Dowdy, help restore circulation, reduce pain, aid with digestive issues, and enhance the immune system, which often can be “clogged up” by an accumulation of the same pain medications used to treat the initial illness. 

Also, and perhaps just as important as the clinical results, touch therapy, says Dowdy, works to help a patient release from fears and anxieties around their death, making it possible to reengage with loved ones and themselves, creating a more human experience for everyone involved.

“What we find with touch therapy is that often patients who are otherwise not talking or communicating with family members, or are unable to move do to pain or prolonged sitting or being confined to a bed, become lucid, are able to take part in the process of transitioning and, in some cases, start communicating again,” says Dowdy.

In fact, in some cases terminally ill patients with less than a month to live, says Dowdy, have gone on to extend that period out for several months, the longest a year.  Many patients get to say goodbye to their family members, whereas before touch therapy treatments, were nonresponsive, isolated in their illness.

“I’ve had three patients come out of commas and get to say goodbye to family members,” Dowdy says. “What we are doing, through the power of touch is, in many cases, helping to create a physical space for leaving, often for patients who just aren’t ready to go out of fear of leaving those they love behind.”

Dowdy, who left a 20-year career in the geological sector as a design engineer “completely burnt out,” was always interested in massage therapy. 

“I wanted to do something for myself, but also learn to do something I could pass on to others as a way to help them feel better,” Dowdy said.  “My wife saw I was burnt out, and I had always told my kids to do what you love. So I had to retool my career and figure out what was coming next.”

What came next for Dowdy was enrollment in a 16-week massage therapy training course in Citrus Heights, followed by several months of volunteering while healing from heart valve replacement surgery.  Then, through a series of events, Dowdy says he was asked to attend a board meeting in Sacramento for Healing Hands-Healing Hearts, then under the direction of Jo Williams, who founded the organization in Sacramento in 2001.  He’d been looking for a way to parlay the massage therapy training into a new career working more closely with terminally ill patients.  So, when it was announced at that meeting that Healing Hands was going to dissolve, he immediately took action.

“This was exactly the kind of business I wanted to start for myself,” Dowdy said.  “So when it was announced that it was going to close, I knew what I needed to do and I had my lawyer draw up transfer papers and take it from there. It was actually very simple.”

While the mission of Healing Hands has remained primarily intact under Dowdy and Marie’s vision, the menu of services is expanding and training courses have become more structured under a new, comprehensive training manual for touch therapists, crafted by Dowdy.  In addition, Dowdy and Marie, are launching a new component of the Healing Hands mission, expanding its reach to veterans.  The Alfred J. Goularte Veterans Care Program, named after Marie’s father, a WWII veteran who served in the U.S. Army’s airborne division from 1943 to 1945 will help veterans who, although not necessarily terminal, suffer from a range of chronic health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), fibromyalgia, depression and injury related pain.

Healing Hands-Healing Hearts currently has a roster of roughly half a dozen certified touch therapy massage workers, in addition to Dowdy and Marie, and is currently operating on donations from grants and fees from training courses.  Its current, major supporters include the Spiritual Center for Positive Living, Mercy Springs Foundation and Kern Community Foundation.

Touch Therapy certification classes are open to all and the next one on the calendar is a 16-week course scheduled to begin in November in Bakersfield.  Courses typically run about $225.00, Dowdy said.

Long term, the vision is to expand even further, with Healing Hands-Healing Hearts brick and mortar “branches” dotting country as, according to Marie, who now serves as the organization’s vice president, western culture grows ever-more open to non-traditional avenues for caring for the terminally ill.

“We, as a culture, especially among millennials, are more than ready for a different approach to end-of-life care,” says Marie. “We say ‘rest in peace’ when someone passes.  But the truth is, we all have a human right to rest in peace while we are alive.”

wwwhealinghandshealinghearts.org