Courage & Resilience #3

Sharon Leddy-Smart:

Sometimes you're in and out of doctor's office in a flash and and I really appreciated that one on one time and attention.

Gary Gurney:

And in Rolfing, what's important isn't how you necessarily feel on the table, it's how you feel when you're moving and walking. So we use walking as a diagnostic to try to be able to figure out where strains are in people's bodies that are holding them back from feeling really free and easy in their movement.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

I was so empowered by the whole thing, how it made me feel, how it made everybody feel. You didn't even have to have cancer to feel like you were part of this amazing event.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hello. Welcome to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. Today is October 2, 2011. Our theme this week is courage, but my interest really lies in the area of resilience. Resilience, defined as about elasticity and the ability to bounce back after encountering stress in one's life. When I finished Medical School in 1996, I trained in family and preventive medicine. And over time I spent a lot of hours with patients discussing traumatic events. Traumatic in the positive sense, traumatic in the negative sense, but all stressful. And what I found was that some patients were far more able to bounce back from issues that had caused difficulties in their lives. The guests on today's show are primarily going to discuss breast cancer and its impact on their lives. We also have Gary Gurney, who's going to talk about resilience from his standpoint as a certified Rolfer. Today I am joined, as always, by Genevieve Morgan, the wellness editor for Maine Magazine. And we're going to begin our show by discussing food and nutrition.

Genevieve Morgan:

Hi, Lisa. As you can tell, my resilience has been put to the test this week by my voice. So I apologize to all the listeners out there. I'm a little hoarse. But it's a good topic because it's cold and flu season. We all need to build our strength

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

and resilience well, and we are going to discuss actual cold and flu season topics. More in the Future. But I, I thought it was very interesting. You and I were having a conversation about this yesterday that the foods that are good for colds include things like scallions and ginger and garlic, all very pungent foods. These foods tend to be very good for the liver.

Genevieve Morgan:

Really?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In traditional Chinese medicine.

Genevieve Morgan:

I didn't know that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. And the liver in traditional Chinese medicine is associated with the wood element and the wood element obviously is associated with trees and flexibility. And we'll talk about this also further along in the show. But what I wanted to talk about right now were some of these wonderful items that I've gotten from the Whole Foods Market here in Portland.

Genevieve Morgan:

They look delicious.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And a couple of these items actually are ones that we've had in part previously. Last week we had some beautiful red rocket peppers from the Little River Farm in Buxton and some backyard farm tomatoes. This week we have some bullhorn and green peppers from Checkerberry Farm in Parkman. And I used a bunch of these items in my vegetarian chili that I made over the weekend for my niece Stella's seventh birthday.

Genevieve Morgan:

That sounds delicious. I just, sometimes when I bring those, the produce home, my kids will want to go pick berry picking or pick your own. I never know what to do with it. So tell me about the vegetarian chili. Sounds great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Vegetarian chili is a. Well, first of all, let me just back up and say I eat a predominantly plant based diet that's a sort of a social and a physical choice. But every so often, if meat crosses my path, I don't, you know, run in the other direction in fear, which a lot of people tend to do. But what I, what I have found to be very successful in my own life is to create vegetarian oriented or vegetable oriented plant based meals to bring with me to events. This chili is something that we taught people how to make and some of the cooking classes that I have instructed over the years, it has peppers and carrots and celery and it's very toothsome and hearty. And even people who eat meat predominantly, they like this chili. Sometimes they say, hey, this chili goes

Genevieve Morgan:

well with meat and will your kids eat it?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

My kids do eat it.

Genevieve Morgan:

It's a good way to get vegetables in them then.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is a great way to get vegetables in them. And it's also a great way to sort of supplant some of the meat that's on one's plate. Because if you're going to eat meat we certainly encourage you to have the locally grown grass fed animals and those tend to be a little bit more expensive. They tend not to have as many issues with hormones and exposure to other chemicals that are in foods. But again, they are more expensive.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, you know, I never think about that. Well, actually now I do think about it now that I'm a wellness editor. But when I was growing up, I never thought about the fact that cows eat grass. And of course, if pesticide is sprayed on grass, then the pesticide is in the cow.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Right. And actually what we know is that it's not the one apple that has pesticides on it that's the problem. It's the one apple and the grass that the cow eats and then the chemicals that you spray on your body. And all of these things over time contribute to something called the body burden. And this goes back to actually one of the things we were talking about earlier, which is resiliency and the body's ability to what some people call detoxify. And I really don't like that term because it kind of intimates that we are toxified and that things are dangerous and polluted. And I don't really feel that way. I think we all exist within an environment and our bodies really can deal with whatever are sort of thrown at us as long as we have good enough energy and resiliency. However, as far as minimizing the body's burden, we do things like trying to choose organic foods.

Genevieve Morgan:

I see.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. And I know you've had questions about organic foods. We were talking about this yesterday.

Genevieve Morgan:

I've had a lot of questions about organic foods because again, when you're looking at your pocketbook, organic foods. I used to work in a natural foods market and I was checking out and always I would get the response that people could not believe how much the grapes cost. Why are the grapes cost so much? And you go to Whole Foods, you go to different natural food stores, and organic food does seem to cost more. I always try to make the argument with people that you either pay up front with your food or you pay later down the line in a hospital bed at the end of your life. But, you know, sometimes that doesn't really go over that well. But I'm wondering, if you have to make those kind of choices, what are the best foods to eat organic?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, we have a really good resource in the environmental working group. Every year they put out their dirty dozen. They test foods, they test produce specifically for pesticide residues and they're able to tell us which ones are the most contaminated. And again, contaminated, I don't know, it's a tough word for me. It's like toxic, but we'll just throw that out there.

Genevieve Morgan:

Melissa, just one quick thing. Can you just explain to people? Because as a layman it is hard to understand that difference between a body burden. We hear a lot about chemicals in the environment, but our bodies are engineered, if you want to use that word, to get rid of toxins, get rid of stressors. I mean, that is part of what you said with resiliency. So when we're talking about body burden, we're also talking about a balance between what you can get rid of and what you can.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Right. And a stressed out body has more difficulty getting rid of things that it ingest. And the liver is actually, this is this organ that basically cleans your blood as it flows around the body. So if you are healthy and you're exposed to small amounts of things that are maybe a little bit less palatable from the body standpoint, then your body can, then your liver can take care of all this stuff.

Genevieve Morgan:

And that's for everybody, across the board, for everybody.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But if you have a genetic predisposition to cancer or to other illnesses, or if you have extreme stress going on in your life, or, you know, if you have extreme burden, you know, if you live next to a nuclear waste site, for example, you know, God forbid, then it definitely throws that balance off. So when we're talking about contaminated foods, and again, contaminated is a word that's used by the Environmental Working Group. And we will actually put this on our website for people who are interested in the dirty dozen. The foods that come up include. Well, first on the list is peaches. But interesting for this time of year is apples. Also sweet bell peppers, celery. It's something that we don't really think about. Nectarines, strawberries. And then the list goes on. Spinach and lettuce are actually in here. And grapes, imported grapes have been very notorious for having for being contaminated with pesticides. And the good thing is that for many of these, you can peel them, you can take the outer layer off. And it doesn't completely get rid of the pesticides, but it does minimize the amount of stuff that you're getting.

Genevieve Morgan:

What about washing?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Washing it does help. But the best thing to do in this situation is to take your little list of foods, if you are really trying to be mindful about it, and choose the foods that tend to be most contaminated by pesticides. Choose those to be your organic foods. Have those be the ones that you spend a little bit of extra money on and then the ones that aren't really quite as contaminated, the onions, the avocado, the corn, asparagus and other things. And you can have those beef, the conventionally purchased foods. So the other thing that I have here today is a little mini watermelon, which I know you joked with me yesterday, is so perfect for this week's topic, right?

Genevieve Morgan:

Yes, watermelons. And it is breast cancer awareness month.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. Right. We amuse ourselves sometimes here on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. But the nice thing about mini watermelons, it's interesting, these were available at the Whole Foods Market here in Portland. And they watermelons, they're not going to be a seasonal, locally grown food for much longer. But what we know from a traditional Chinese medicine standpoint is that they're good for the stomach and the spleen and they tend to be a diuretic. So strangely enough, they're good for weight loss. And we teach this in our Qigong based wellness class in my office. And when my patients come in and they're talking about weight, I actually do suggest watermelon. And yesterday you said to me, hey, can't watermelon be grilled? And I said, yes, it can. Yes, it can. Absolutely. And that is the other piece about the food. And this is why we talked about vegetarian chili early on, is really trying to make food not only palatable but pleasing, trying to find creative ways to be interested in eating it yourself and having your children eat it and bring it with you wherever you go.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, I think that's a great idea. And I know that I've seen a lot of new salad recipes on restaurant menus around locally in Portland that are featuring grilled watermelon. I would definitely run down and pick some of that up before it's out of season.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And we will talk more about the locally grown foods available at Whole Foods and other places. And we'll talk more in future food segments about things like eating meat and decreasing our body burden and decreasing our pesticide intake. And I appreciate your being here with me in the studio. Genevieve Morgan.

Genevieve Morgan:

Thank you, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Joining us in the studio today, along with Genevieve Morgan, the wellness editor for Maine Magazine, are Sharon Letty Smart and Dr. Melinda Molen. Dr. Molen was born and raised in New York City and completed advanced fellowship training in surgical critical care at Hartford Hospital and in trauma surgery at the University of California, San Diego. In 1996, Dr. Molen established her own private practice devoted exclusively to breast surgery and became the director of Mercy Hospital's Breast Health Resource Center. In May of 2006, her practice, breast Care Specialists of Maine, became a department of Mercy Hospital. Sharon Letty Smart is a woman who lives a full, happy life. As a wife and mother of five. Working full time, she manages to train for triathlons and stay connected to good friends. Sharon is also a breast cancer Survivor, diagnosed in July 2009, two days before her twin's fourth birthday and only two weeks before the try for a cure. She didn't let the daunting news hold her back from participating or celebrating with her family. The following year's try for a cure came quickly. After a year filled with bilateral mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and reconstructive surgeries, Physically unprepared for the challenge, she was determined more than ever to cross the finish line. This time as a survivor. She had taught herself and her children that even with setbacks, we can overcome whatever obstacles life presents to us. We just have to be willing to fight. Good morning to you both. We've been talking about courage. We named this show Courage. And Jan and I had this conversation yesterday about courage and what courage means, and it's about sort of fearlessness. But then we came to the understanding that really it's more about resilience and the ability to bounce back and be elastic. And I have the sense that, Sharon, you've had this in your life as a breast cancer survivor and a mother and a full time worker and an athlete. And I know that Dr. Mullen has done this based on the fact that she's had to go through training. And in fact, we were having a conversation before we got on the air as to how many, how many hours a week that was. But being a surgeon in Brooklyn, so it's pretty appropriate that you're here. I'm interested. Let's start with you, Dr. Mullen. One in eight women have breast cancer, are diagnosed with breast cancer over the course of their lifetime. Did this help influence your choice of career or was there something else that brought you into being the type of surgeon that you are?

Dr. Melinda Molin:

I actually began my life as a trauma critical care specialist, which is what brought me to Maine. I have fellowship training in trauma surgery and surgical intensive care. And when I came here, the chairman of the department said, who actually, I mean, this is ancient history. And breast cancer in Maine. Carl Bradenberg's wife, Patricia Bradenberg, is somebody who was really at the beginning of breast cancer activism, an advocacy in Maine. And he said, why don't you take a look at taking care of this particular entity as a separate issue, and why don't you develop a sub focus on that? So with that suggestion, I was the only female surgeon in this part of Maine, not in the state of Maine at the time, but. But I started to do a lot of work.

Genevieve Morgan:

So, Lisa, I don't know if you know this, but obviously Dr. Mullen knows this, but I'm a patient of Dr. Mullin's, as is Sharon, who's here today. And I can officially say that one of the wonderful things about your breast Care center is that it is patient focused. I don't know if you've had that experience as well.

Sharon Leddy-Smart:

Absolutely.

Genevieve Morgan:

I'd love you to speak to that.

Sharon Leddy-Smart:

Absolutely. I had heard many wonderful things about you, of course, and I didn't really know what to expect when I went in. In fact, I made a phone call and I said, you know, is there anything I should be aware of? Should I know anything ahead of time? Is there anything that I need to do? And they said, you know, staff said, no, just come on and fill the paperwork out and Melinda will explain everything to you. Dr. Molen. And so when I went in there and I waited for a very long time in the waiting room, of course, really nervous, my husband by my side. And I waited and I waited and I waited. And to be honest, I was thinking, okay, all right, what's taking so long? But when I went into her office, the examining room, I knew exactly why I had waited so long in the waiting room. It's because she took her time. She was very, very thorough, explained what was happening, what were my options, how did I feel about it, did I understand it? And then in my exam, she thought that she had felt something in my lymph nodes and said, I'm going to take you right down to radiology. And Dr. Mullen then poked her head out of the examining room and said to one of the nurses, I'm going to be in here for a while. And I thought, wow. Honestly, I've shared this story many, many times, and it really meant so much, you know, that personal care, sometimes you're in and out of doctor's office in a flash. And I really appreciated that one on one time and attention. And when I ended up coming back from radiology. Actually, I wasn't even back from radiology yet. The schedule was a little delayed. And she came in looking for me personally, which I thought was really pretty special. And I was on the table at the time. And she actually hopped up right next to me, which I thought was amazing. I thought, you know, how cool is this? You know, she cares about me, the person, she's the looking for me. She's literally right there by my side. And it really, really meant a lot to me. So I thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it is. And I know from my patients, when I have people who have come in and they feel a lump, and specifically a lump in their breast, they're terrified. And time is really of the essence. As soon as you find something, as soon as you see something, it really is important to know what that means, what it looks like, whether it's benign, whether it's not. And I think that, Jen, you were telling me about this yesterday and I know, Sharon, you were telling me that you were very quickly diagnosed, scheduled for surgery. Weren't you about ready to go do try for a cure?

Sharon Leddy-Smart:

I was actually. I was diagnosed two weeks before and it was important to me to be able to do it. It had been my second year at the time, and I had always been very active with my family, active in sports, and made a conscious effort to take care of myself. And I really wanted to be able to participate in. In that amazing event. And lo and behold, like I said, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. So it had a certainly different meaning the second year. And I felt fine. And I spoke to Dr. Molen about what I really wanted to be able to do. And she said, you know, you can do it. Well, surgery was scheduled after and she knew that that was important to me on a number, you know, for a number of reasons, really.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Right. And you told me this story about seeing the survivors the first year and then and knowing that you had breast cancer and then going back again and having it mean an entirely different thing.

Sharon Leddy-Smart:

Well, my first year I did not have breast cancer. And I didn't think that I knew anybody who had breast cancer. Had never really been anything that experienced in my family. And I was just amazed by the amount of support, the amount of people it had touched in a small area. Of course it was much bigger and it is much bigger. And to look at the survivors and think to myself how far they had come, not really knowing the journey. So my second year, as I mentioned being diagnosed, I stood not with the survivors, but with the other women. In the opening ceremonies and the survivors stood out front in their pink caps and they read their poem and they cried and they hugged each other and it seemed so distant to me. It really, truly did. It was like I was in a tunnel looking down and I just could not see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was surrounded by my friends who literally all had their hands on me, and I was sobbing, sobbing because I wanted to be where they were and I wasn't there. And I hadn't had surgery and I hadn't started chemotherapy or radiation or any of that. And I really didn't know what was in store. I just knew that I didn't want to be where I was and I wanted to be over with the survivors. And the third year I was with the survivors. So it was a very, very special year for me. It was a challenging year, to say the least, and I was not physically prepared at all. I was one of those people who did not lose weight during chemotherapy, but gained weight during chemotherapy, and it was difficult to find the time to exercise, to have the energy to exercise with, taking care of my family and working full time during treatments. I tell people, you know, I just live my life and that's really what it is. I'm a busy woman, as many of us are and most of us are, and I have a lot of wonderful blessings in my life. And looking back at the situation, they were kind of a distraction, a positive distraction. You know, I didn't sit around and feel sorry for myself. I had to get up in the morning. I had to feed my children, make sure they were ready for school, and went about my day. I really, truly did. And don't get me wrong, the thought of it does enter my mind occasionally, but it doesn't consume my life.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, this brings up a good point, because my mother was Diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago. Dr. Mullen knows this. And Lisa and I were talking yesterday about the moment when you get that diagnosis. And I wanted Dr. Mullen to talk about some of the things that she does because she does them so well to help. We're talking about resilience and courage. And one of the things that doctors and family members of recently diagnosed breast cancer patients can do is have some tools to help them realize that there is life after the diagnosis. It's a journey, but like any journey, you do, you travel a distant landscape, but you can come back. You may be a little different, but you can come back. So would you speak to that Dr. Mullen, because you were so helpful to me?

Dr. Melinda Molin:

I think there are several elements. One is it's helpful if you can intuit that people are different. They receive information differently, they process information differently. But I find that some things are consistent. People need language that they can understand. They want to hear the truth. It's important to find out what somebody's support system is. Sometimes we'll have women who come in on their own, and I'll always say, you're here by yourself today. And oftentimes they'll say, I'm just somebody who needs to get the facts first. And then I'll bring everybody into the loop. And then when their day of surgery arrives, you've got a cadre of supportive friends or relatives. I think that it's important to walk the walk however we do it. You, Lisa, work in an area which I couldn't work in, which is sort of a more global general health. And I think that's an incredible challenge. And people talk about holistic, but you shouldn't have to go to a holistic specialist to get a holistic approach. And so that was a very exciting thing. And I think that breast cancer, nobody would ask for that growth opportunity. But any trauma, any tragedy in anybody's life is an opportunity for transformation. And if I can be a part of that process, in addition, and I'm not trying to downgrade the nuts and bolts of good technical surgery and excellent decision making and collaboration with your colleagues, that that's all key, but. But if in the process, somebody can find an entryway to make some positive change in their lives, and if I can be a part of that, and when someone comes back and tells me that, that's a very exciting thing for me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sharon, did that happen for you? Was this a moment that caused you to really find some more meaning, find additional meaning, and you're already busy in full life Absolutely.

Sharon Leddy-Smart:

I felt that it was. I was obligated to reach out and help others who were in my situation or had experienced some form. And many people did reach out to me. They knew a friend of a friend would contact me and asking, can you refer us to a doctor? Who did you have for a plastic surgeon? What was your experience? And how did you deal with your children? So a lot of people did come my way, but I also gave out my phone number a lot to people that I knew. And I just went up to people, you know, I reached out to people who, you know, had the pink bandana, you know, people. I looked at people right in the eyes and said, hi, you know, And I felt like that that just gave people a little bit of hope, because when I didn't have any hair, people looked at me. They very. I made eye contact with them. They very quickly looked away, and I always looked right back, like to say, it's okay. You know, the hair doesn't make you who you are. You know, people may look at you a little bit differently, but you know what? It's only hair, and it grows back.

Dr. Melinda Molin:

I mean, to Sharon's point, the generosity of women who have been through this experience, in terms of sharing it with women who are newly diagnosed is extraordinary. Support groups are wonderful, but I think sometimes that can be very intimidating for somebody who is a new recruit, so to speak. And what we do in the practices with all of our years we have, we try to match women demographically with someone else who can be a kind of buddy. And every time we've called and said, would you be available to speak with somebody? The answer is always yes. And I think it's an incredibly generous thing to do.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, I have one last question for Dr. Mullen and Sharon. You can chime in here because we are the lay people in the room. Obviously, as my role as wellness editor at Maine Magazine, I'm always telling people to take good care of themselves in the way that you've been talking about. And one of the ways that women can take care of themselves is through yearly mammograms after 40. At least that's what we've all been told. And lately I've been hearing from many people that they're getting callbacks from their digital mammograms. And I know that that's somewhat controversial right now, but I. You know, I do one every year, and I'm wondering what you have to say about that. Just for the general listener out there,

Dr. Melinda Molin:

we need to find out what causes breast cancer. So that we can prevent it on its best day. A mammogram is not going to pick up the malignant process until it's had three to five years to percolate. So we're not getting in on ground zero with mammography, with mri, with any sort of diagnostics that are available. And we're obviously still not at a place since we don't know what the cause is, it's very difficult to prevent. Mammography has a lot of technical imperfections. And what happens with digital mammography is it does allow you to see through a more dense breast in a better way. But what it also is, is it's so much more sensitive that a lot of small things which never pan out to be anything, particularly microcalcifications, most of which are going to be very benign in the breast, are called abnormalities. And so the callback rate, the biopsy rate, the anxiety rate go up, and it's not necessarily clear that the cure rate goes up. For purposes of breast cancer, we really can think about there are three types of breast cancer. There's the type that's so non aggressive that when you diagnose it probably doesn't really matter in terms of its cure. There's the type that's so aggressive that it may not matter how, quote, unquote early. And people confuse mammographically early with biologically early. It may not matter that cancer is so aggressive that all of the tools that we have for cure may not impact. And the sad fact is that women still die of breast cancer. And then you've got that middle ground where if we find something, we can impact and change the natural history from death to survival. And how the diagnostic tools we have factor into all of that is not necessarily clear. So I don't want to send the message of don't get mammograms, but it's important for women to know that there's a lot of controversy and a lot of ambiguity.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, this has been a very informative segment. It's been informative on lots of different levels, from the scientific to the emotional social ramifications of breast cancer. And you are a pretty amazing duo over on the other side of the microphone. It's really great to have you both in here. It's been nice to spend time with you. Dr. Melinda Molin and also Sharon Letty Swift, smart breast cancer survivor, mother, full time worker, triathlete, and with Jen Morgan, wellness editor for Maine magazine, who herself has a personal story related to this problem. So thank you so much for Coming in. And we'll go into the Breast Cancer Awareness Month with full force, lots of courage. Yes. And resilience. Today in the studio, we have Genevieve Morgan with us. She is the wellness editor for Maine Magazine, who is a sponsor of our show. And we have another special guest that I'm going to let Genevieve introduce.

Genevieve Morgan:

Thank you, Lisa. Today in the studio we have Gary Gurney, who is a certified Rolfer who practices at Wildwood Medicine in Portland, Maine. Since 1998, Gary has been dedicated to helping people find natural ways to feel great and live more fully, which we really like.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, we do.

Genevieve Morgan:

Many of his clients have found that Rolfing gives results that go far beyond the usual deep tissue massage and other forms of body work. His passion is to help people find lasting relief from pain, discover greater mobility and increase their sense of physical vitality. Thanks for coming to the studio, Gary.

Dr. Melinda Molin:

Thank you.

Genevieve Morgan:

We're so happy to have you. I'm particularly happy to have you on the Maine Magazine minutes because you and I did a interview for the July issue about feet as the foundation of fitness and we've had a long relationship. So, Gary, can you tell our listeners out there a little bit about yourself and why you started your practice in Rolfing Structural integration.

Gary Gurney:

I had moved to Maine in 1998 after graduating massage school and very quickly found that I did not like being a massage therapist and ended up teaching yoga. So my massage career ended up going nowhere. Around 2004, I had a neck problem that I was unable to fix with chiropractic osteopathic work massage. My yoga practice wasn't helping and I had met a Rolfer years earlier and came across his name and decided to get some work. And very quickly he cleared up my neck problem and I found benefits that were beyond clearing up my neck pain that inspired me to pursue a career as a Rolfer. And so that's my full time work now.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, that's a common misperception about Rolfing, isn't it? That it's really painful, turns a lot of people off. But. But I was Rolfed. You've Rolfed me. And it was great. It was therapeutic. I had a chronic. I herniated two cervical discs that you healed through Rolfing. So tell me why people think it's painful because that has not been my experience.

Gary Gurney:

In the 1970s, when Rolfing first sort of came on the scene, when Dr. Rolf was still alive, there were a lot of young and new practitioners. There wasn't a lot of experience teaching at the Rolf Institute. And the work tended to be Very aggressive. In the last 30 years, as practitioners have gained experience, we now have Rolfers who've been practicing 40 years. They've discovered that there are a lot of ways and techniques that you can release tight tissue that don't involve making a person more uncomfortable than they can bear. And they found that's actually counterproductive because the brain and the nervous system ultimately control the state of your tissue and the tension in your muscles. And if you don't respect the nervous system, you can run a bulldozer over the muscles and they'll go right back to being tight once the bulldozer is gone, so to speak.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So far, we've heard about neck pain and neck pain. What other types of issues are helped with Rolfing structural integration?

Gary Gurney:

Well, the interesting thing, most people who come to me have some sort of specific issue that they've been dealing with for years, generally some kind of ache and pain in the neck, lower back, hip, shoulder, what have you. The real goal of Rolfing, as Dr. Rolf outlined it, was to really clear up the tissue in the whole body and to try to. Try to allow a person to become more resilient, more flexible, more adaptable to everyday stresses and strains. So the main client for Rolfing is a person who just feels like they're out of whack a little bit. A lot of my clients are people in their late 30s, all the way into the late 50s, I mean, up to any age. But people who feel like their resilience and their capacity to recover from stresses and strains is diminished. And they come to me to sort of get that stuff cleared out of their body so that they can go forward and just have more energy to live their life and feel really great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And that's perfect because we're talking about resilience and encouraged to live one's life. Today, and it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and we're talking about. We were talking with women earlier who were involved with breast cancer. I know this is. Isn't specifically your field, but it is about resilience. So it's interesting to note that you have people who come in, and that's what their main focus is.

Gary Gurney:

Yes. Yeah. Our belief is that human beings, the human body, is an amazing organism. It has an incredible capacity to adapt to stresses, strains, injuries, and illnesses. And over time, for a lot of people, the stresses and strains in their body, whether it's injury, whether it's emotional stress, whether it's stress from their jobs, or just the accumulation of lifetime dings, so to speak, after a while, a lot of people feel like they sort of run out of their capacity to adapt and a little strain that in your 20s might get over in a couple of days. All of a sudden, when you're 40, it feels like it's two months later and you can't get over it. And so a lot of my clients are people who want to try to recover some of that capacity.

Genevieve Morgan:

And it works, actually. But I like to go back to when you were a massage therapist and decided you didn't want to be a massage therapist. But you Rolfing is bodywork. I just want to make that clear to the listeners out there. So it's a different kind of bodywork. But why don't you briefly describe what a layperson like myself would expect? Because I know when I walked, first time I walked into your office, I didn't know what to expect.

Gary Gurney:

Right. Well, what was difficult for me as a massage therapist was I would have someone come in with a sore hip, and I knew deep tissue techniques as a massage therapist, and I would grind away on their hip and work on their hip, and the person would feel good on the table, and they might feel good for a day. If they were really lucky, they'd feel good for two days, and they would come back repeatedly with the same problem showing up. And it didn't matter how many times or how hard we worked on their hip, it always seemed to come back. And the first thing, when I got Rolfed, the Rolfer looked at my ankle and said, what happened to your ankle? And I had sprained it four or five years earlier. And he felt like that my neck was trying to adapt to a sprained ankle that never really healed itself. And so a lot of that work was to get my feet under me and to get my ankles and knees working properly and just work his way up through my body till when he was able to clear up the tissue in my neck, my whole body was able to support that change.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I'm interested in why you specifically were doing yoga. You were a massage therapist. This bodywork was very important to you. I understand that you have a background as a sound engineer, possibly, or some other things. You're also an athlete, you're a father. But why did this call to you specifically for me?

Gary Gurney:

I had been doing yoga and meditation for about 12 years pretty avidly at the time I got Rolfed. And interestingly enough, I found that the type of touch that I received from the Rolfer and the. The awareness that I got in my body was something I hadn't really learned through doing Yoga and meditation, or even receiving a lot of massage work, which I had. And I found that awareness of my body and that ability to perceive myself. I was able to just sort of release a lot of anxiety and tension that had been there my whole life and I just hadn't quite recognized it.

Genevieve Morgan:

Gary, what kind of results can people expect to see after a few sessions of Rolfing?

Gary Gurney:

Typically, in a successful Rolfing session or series, people often One of the most common comments I get, and it still surprises me to this day, is people often feel much younger. I had a client who is a chef in one of the more well known restaurants in Portland, and as you know, that's grueling work on their feet all day and long hours. And he told me at the end of his series he felt like someone had a reset button in his body and he felt like he got the clock turned back 10 years and that the long shifts were not making him as tired and he would recover much better so he could enjoy his time off.

Genevieve Morgan:

That's talk about resilience.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes.

Genevieve Morgan:

Setting the clock back 10 years.

Sharon Leddy-Smart:

Yeah, not bad.

Gary Gurney:

And a lot of it will just be joint mobility, flexibility. People often feel lighter. That's a very common comment is people just feel like someone took a 20 pound weight off their shoulders and that walking down the street tends to be more pleasurable in and of itself.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, and I wanted to touch on that briefly. Movement is very important in the Rolfing sessions, how people move. I know that when we were working together, I would walk around the room and you would see it, look at my gait, look at how I was standing, explain that.

Gary Gurney:

And that's a good question, I think, because it's where Rolfing is a little different. As a massage therapist, I found someone would come in with a strained back and they would feel great on the table and they jump up off the table and their back strain would immediately come back. And in Rolfing, what's important isn't how you necessarily feel on the table, it's how you feel when you're moving and walking. So we use walking as a diagnostic to try to be able to figure out where strains are in people's bodies that are holding them back from feeling really free and easy in their movement. And I also like to incorporate movement in the work. So a session is much more interactive than a massage. I'll be helping someone to figure out how to move through through a strained joint or a tight joint in such a way that they don't have to use as much effort as they think they often do to feel easy and free. Dr. Rolf came up with a really wonderful template which we call the Recipe in Rolfing lingo. It's a series of 10 sessions and she set those 10 sessions up so that each session has a specific focus on areas of the body and a function of the body, and that each session accumulates and builds on the previous session. And so you will get your entire body worked on in a ten series cumulatively, but you will not get a whole body, say, massage in one session. And so the idea is that you work on specific functions of the body through the series to create this integrated

Genevieve Morgan:

structure and then you can come back for tune ups as you need to.

Gary Gurney:

Yes, a lot of my clients, if they go through 10 series with me and they find the work is really successful, a lot of them, if they really enjoy the work, will come back occasionally for tune ups. Sometimes just one session here and there. If they say get a little crook in their neck or something, other people just three times a year, maybe in the spring or something, just to kind of clear the cobwebs of winter out and move on. It's really very individual.

Genevieve Morgan:

Thank you so much for joining us, Gary. It's been great to talk with you. To learn more about Gary Gurney and the many benefits of Rolfing, visit garyguerney.com or read my wellness column featuring Gary in the July issue of Maine Magazine, available online@mainmag.com the October edition of Maine Magazine can be found at your local newsstand.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One of the ways in which we attempt to give back at the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is by supporting the book Our Daily Tread. Our Daily Tread was written in honor of our late friend Hanley Denning and all proceeds benefit her organization, Safe Passage. Our Daily Tread was written in collaboration with Island Port Press. Safe passage provides approximately 550 children with education, social services and the chance to move beyond the poverty their families have faced for generations at the Guatemala City dump. And of note, my son Campbell, who turned 18 yesterday. Happy birthday. Campbell is currently down at Safe Passage working with the children. This week's quote comes from Winston Churchill. Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. It is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Julie Jordan Marchese is a breast cancer survivor, mother, athlete, owner of Inspired events, and founder and race director of Try for a Cure, which raises money for the Maine Cancer Foundation. Welcome, Julie. Jen, hello. Jen Morgan is sitting next to me.

Genevieve Morgan:

Hi, Julie. Hi, Julie.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So, Julie, when we asked you to come in and speak on this segment, one of the things you wanted to be very specific about was that even though this is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and our show is about courage and resilience and breast cancer, and you're a breast cancer survivor, you're raising money and try for a cure for things other than breast cancer.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

Sure. And the reason why it was started that way is because we wanted people to come and honor those who have passed or are living with cancer. And if we were to limit it to one type of cancer, then we felt that we were limiting the scope of people that would want to support the event. So as an event, as somebody that wants to come in and do the race, if your dad had had prostate cancer, we why not do it in his honor? So that's why we opened up the scope. Now, of course, it's women and it's very pink. So sometimes it does. You know, people think that it's a breast cancer event. But of course, many of the women that are there, we have over 100 survivors on race day, and I would say that the largest percentage of those are breast cancer survivors because as we all know, breast cancer is probably the largest women's cancer of all the cancers.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Right. And we've used this statistic, 1 in 8 women in her lifetime will end up with breast cancer. And Sharon Letty Smart was on earlier today, and she, of course, is a

Julie Jordan Marchese:

breast cancer survivor and has done the race several times.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

She has. She mentioned this several times. She did.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

Actually, she was supposed to be operated on before Try for a Cure, and for some reason they didn't operate on her. And she did the race and went in and had her operation after. So Sharon is an amazing, strong woman.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. And she definitely worked with Dr. Mullen on that. She actually said, you know, this was very intentional, very purposeful. Tell me about your experience with your personal experience with Try for a Cure, because I know that not only are you the founder and the race director, but you've also trained for it yourself, been in it yourself, and you have a very personal reason for having started this whole thing. I believe. Sure.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

Well, initially, my mom had breast cancer, and I was in a spot where I could spend my time giving back after years of working. And that became my cause because my mom had breast cancer. And I got introduced to the Maine Cancer foundation and was put on the board there. And during that time, there were a couple of events that I helped them do there. And when you get involved with organizations and you give back, you think that you yourself are immune from these kind of diseases. And before you knew it, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And I never thought in my right mind that that would happen. That was the cause that I chose to work for. And all of a sudden, I now became a sister in the fight against breast cancer, which was not that difficult for me because I had been ingrained in the whole thing for so long. But after I went through my ordeal, one of the things that I like to do is challenge my body and heard about another all women's triathlon and actually got a couple friends to go down and do it with me. Never had done it before. So I went down and did this race, and I was so empowered by the whole thing, how it made me feel, how it made everybody feel. You didn't even have to have cancer to feel like you were part of this amazing event. And so I brought that back with me and got excited that we should be able to do that in Maine. There's 100 women down there in Maine, so why not try it here?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How many years ago was that?

Julie Jordan Marchese:

That was. I think I did 2006.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And is it true that you now sell out? Oh, like, almost immediately.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

It's very true. We were just talking about that before I came here. And this past year, we sold out 850 spots in four minutes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Right. And this is for a triathlon where you actually have to, like, run, bike, and swim. It's not just your regular race, so that says something.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

And you have to raise money, too. So you have to be totally committed, not only for yourself, you know, to go out and raise money and train. I mean, it's not easy to do something like that without training.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, and in your experience, getting back to what Lisa was saying, in your experience with cancer research and fundraising for cancer, finding the cure for cancer, and also research. What are some other events? If I'm a couch potato and I don't really feel like I want to go train for a triathlon, which, by

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

the way, she's not people who are listening. I just want you to understand that Jen's very active, but if she was.

Genevieve Morgan:

But if I were a couch potato. What are some of the other events that around the state that can raise money for cancer?

Julie Jordan Marchese:

Oh, well, I don't think that they're as far as raising money for cancer.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, the Maine Cancer Foundation, I know, has an event coming up.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

Sure. There's the Breast Cancer Luncheon. That's not necessarily an event that you would train for. What's great about the luncheon is that it's more awareness. And they also give awards to people in the community that have given back from a research standpoint, from a community based standpoint, from all sorts of arenas of which they've helped the cancer community. And then we'll spotlight certain women that have lived with cancer and shown them how, you know, they've lived through their process and what has made them or what they've become from it. It's really a celebrating event. It's a luncheon. It's at the Holiday inn. It's actually October 5th, next Wednesday. And it's been going on for 10 years now.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

And I think there's a lot of survivors that go to this.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I went a couple of years ago with my friend Meg Wolfe, who is both a breast and a bone cancer survivor. And I can attest that it is quite a phenomenal event. Very inspirational. Sure.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

Meg got the, I think the Meredith Burgess Spirit of Life award, I think one year. And Meg's done some wonderful things of which I'm cooking out of her cookbook now.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Me too. I actually have a recipe in there for beet slaw. So I hope you look up that one, Julie.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

Yes, I will.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. And Meg will actually be on the show in an upcoming session, so we'll talk more with her about that.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

Great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What about if you're a gardener? Is there something you could do if you're a gardener and you'd like to help with this awareness?

Julie Jordan Marchese:

There's the pink tulip project.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sure.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

So there's something for everybody. The pink tulips are really cool. It's kind of a two time a year thing where in October you plant and in April and May there's the blooms. And all over the state of Maine, actually, I think you see pink tulips pretty much everywhere.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. And if you go on the Maine cancer website, the Maine Cancer foundation website, there actually shows where each of the gardens are. And I know there's one in Yarmouth, I go run and buy it in the spring.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

So I think they actually had a tour this year where you got on a bus and you went through Portland and you actually saw all the gardens around Portland, so.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And there's different tulips, too. I was very surprised to see this. There's pink, and then there's one that's remembrance, and then there's another one, and then. And I'm not a gardener, so I.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

No, me either. I'm a runner.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Right. But I think it's great because what you're saying is you do what you can. Kind of like, we talk about this every week on our Daily Tread. We, on this show, we read our Daily Tread, which is a book, and we read a quote out of it. And that was something that was a way that we did what we could.

Sharon Leddy-Smart:

You do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You did what you could, which was you founded an organization that enabled other women to run, bike, swim, raise money, be part of a sisterhood. And if you can't do that, you can go to a luncheon, you can put some tulips in the ground. There's all kinds of different ways that people can get back.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

Sure. Always. And what I like is trying something new. So if it's something you've never done before, there are certainly different ways in which you can try to. You know, I wouldn't be a gardener, so for me to put in a pink tulip garden would be challenging.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, maybe in the future, after you're done cooking all the recipes out of Meg Wolf's cookbook.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That'll be the next thing. Very good. Well, thank you for coming in today, Julie Jourdan Marchese, and talking with Jen and I, and for wearing your she Jams outfit to remind us of all the great work you're doing. We know that you've raised some phenomenal amount of money. I'm not even sure that there's official numbers on this yet.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

Oh, it's in excess of three and a half million dollars.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. So it's fairly impressive. And we know that you continue to give back to the community, and there are lots of people who have been impacted by your work, and we applaud you, and we thank you for coming in.

Julie Jordan Marchese:

Well, thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you for joining us this week on Dr. Lisa's Radio Hour and podcast. During difficult times, we're often told we must be strong. We're advised to tough it out. Except the stronger, and the tougher we are, in the conventional sense of the word, the more rigid we have the tendency to become. In traditional Chinese medicine, the tree is often given as a symbol of strength. Wood is the element associated with the liver, an organ which is able to help keep our blood clean and circulating despite the foreign substances we might introduce into the body. Not unlike trees in nature, which keep the air of the earth's body clean and circulating. Trees with stuff withstand tremendous natural forces. They remain strong and even continue growing no matter what weather patterns are introduced rain, sun, drought, and especially wind. It is the wind that may ultimately prove a tree's undoing. Those who live in hurricane susceptible locales know this to be true. The more rigid the tree, the more likely it is to be toppled in a gale. The strength of a tree lies in its flexibility, likewise the strength of a person this week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour we offered our Courage show in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As we reflected on the meaning of courage, especially in a cancer scenario, we came to realize that we were really describing resilience, the ability to bounce back no matter the circumstances, which is truly strength. Tree strength Courage is merely the choice to continue standing in the face of hurricane force winds. It is the ability to keep keep things life, family, job, responsibilities circulating despite the difficulties inherent, which is what each of our Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast guests this week have done. A brave, resilient group. This is flexible and fearless. The very definition of strength. John McCain is not only a talented musician but also an artist. His exhibit Dreaming of Worlds is opening at the Cambridge Coffee House in Broadway in South Portland. Thank you for joining us this week. May you have a bountiful life.