RESOURCES
Bookends
Wellness support for all ages & stages of life
I strive to connect to my community and to be of service by way of offering supportive & therapeutic bodywork
“Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul.”
― Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
I am now at an “age & stage” of my own life where my son is grown and having amazing experiences tuning pianos and building harpsichords in New England. I’ve had the ultimate honor of being able to tend to a beloved parent at the end of their life. I did the same for a grandparent, an aunt, and an uncle.
Each one of these beginnings & endings taught me a great deal about the transitory nature of life. I believe that COVID brought new awareness to our collective cultural conscience. I have a renewed appreciation for life, and have become better about embracing the daily gifts that life offers despite (or perhaps in spite of) my own personal aches, pains, worries, and woes.
I have a loving and supportive spouse who happily tends his garden and bees on his days off while I’m often out & about taking more classes and doing volunteer work that feeds my soul.
Community Involvement
- Charlotte Maxwell Clinic (Volunteer Massage Therapist)
charlottemaxwell.org
The Charlotte Maxwell Clinic is a free women’s clinic that specializes in offering life-enhancing complementary therapies for low-income, underserved, and immigrant San Francisco Bay Area women with cancer. Located in Oakland, their services are provided by a dedicated pool of volunteers who are licensed and certified practitioners of holistic modalities. - PFLAG East Bay
pflag-eastbay.org - Threshold Choir East Bay & Sonoma County
“Singing for those at the thresholds of life.”
thresholdchoir.org
― Stephen Liben, M.D. – Director, Montreal Children’s Hospital
My Own Dis-ease Detour
I have Crohn’s disease. And another related autoimmune disorder called Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS). I was in a complete remission from both of these insidious entities for about 6 or 7 years. Then COVID happened.
I was working as a Travel Nurse in remote Eastern Oregon. I became ill. I spent over 2 weeks quarantined in an apartment with my cat, 4 hours away from family or friends. Not that I could have been around them anyway, but still. I really, intrinsically, FELT that distance. I recovered. Obviously; I’m still here to tell my tale.
Some time passed, and then I got COVID again. My baseline pitiful immune system just couldn’t handle it, that second time around. And as a result … my old nemeses Crohn’s and AS woke up again. And my spine had a hissy fit.
It was a very dark period of time, with pain on par with childbirth, and an accompanying fear of not knowing if I would ever regain my mobility and independence. I now have a very sturdy little cage in my lower spine. I also have a renewed faith in the human body’s ability to mend over time.
Nurse Apple’s Survival Strategies
I don’t give advice. It’s not in my Scope of Practice. But I do enjoy sharing tactics, philosophies, and strategies that have helped me through some of my own personal tribulations.
Motion is Lotion
This is a basic tenet of massage therapy, physical therapy, yoga…
I think we all know this instinctively. Our pets certainly do: “Downward Dog” probably feels just as good to us as it does to our dogs. So why is it that they do it when they first wake up, on their way to the food bowl, whereas many of us have gotten to the point that we have to drive to the gym or the yoga studio to be reminded to do it?
Here is why it’s important physiologically: “Motion is lotion” means that movement can help with joint health. It increases the circulation of blood and synovial fluid providing nutrients and lubrication to the joints. We often lose mobility and flexibility as we age, or if we become immobile for a period of time due to illness or injury. Fortunately, it’s something we can maintain or get back if we work at it.
This is something that can be aided with massage therapy. Passive or active ROM (range-of-motion) via gentle movements and assisted stretching are techniques that can support & help maintain healthy joints.
Resources
- Laughter therapy: A humor-induced hormonal intervention to reduce stress and anxiety
“Therapeutic laughter is a non-invasive, cost-effective, and easily implementable intervention that can be used during this pandemic as a useful supplementary therapy to reduce the mental health burden. Laughter therapy can physiologically lessen the pro-stress factors and increase the mood-elevating anti-stress factors to reduce anxiety and depression.”
NIH: National Library of Medicine
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles - Volunteering provides physical and mental rewards
It reduces stress: Experts report that when you focus on someone other than yourself, it interrupts usual tension-producing patterns.
It makes you healthier: Moods and emotions, like optimism, joy, and control over one’s fate, strengthen the immune system.
(UC San Diego, Center for Student Involvement) - Free Guided Health & Wellness Meditations
(UCLA HEALTH)
uclahealth.org