The Patient as a Wise Guide

Our Western medicine model that focuses on disease and individual body parts, can fall short when it comes to encouraging healing and hope.

My son, Mason Branstrator, released his one year anniversary video (click to watch the 6.39 minute video) to mark the date of the ski accident that left him with paraplegia last year on January 18, 2021.

One of the things Mason’s father and I were struck by is that he, like so many other spinal cord injured (SCI) folks, indicated that doctors told him that he would “never walk again”. Both my partner and I were in the room when, post surgery, doctors entered the room one by one and recited the words “you MAY never walk again” sometimes multiple times a day to our then 17-year old son. We did our own research and found white papers online about Mason’s specific injury and one such paper indicated that nearly 70 percent of SCI patients with the same injury walked post injury. Age and health were major factors in walking success. At the time, this was the hope we hung our hats on. Later, we hung our hope on the fact that Mason’s muscles were awakening one by one and that he slowly began making progress toward walking. Now, he is walking short distances.

In hindsight, as a parent, I could have given some compassionate feedback to the doctors, some of which were doing residencies and likely wanting to follow protocol. I may have shared with them, in the moment, that while their intention may have been to provide realistic information to our son, they were likely unaware that each provider was prefacing their exam with these words, sometimes multiple times a day. I may have pointed out that developmentally and due to recent trauma, Mason was not hearing anything past the words “you may never walk again”. In fact, he was hearing them say “you will never walk again”.

When we transferred to Craig Hospital in Colorado, not one person put limits on Mason walking. In fact, the SCI doctor said that Mason’s imaging of his spine looked far better than he had anticipated. When we left the hospital, the same doctor (who has been practicing for 30 plus years), said “next year when I see you - I will be looking up at you”.

We are grateful that Mason did not believe that he may not walk again. If he had, he likely would have remained sitting in his wheelchair and not put in the extraordinary amount of work he has over the last year to make the gains that he has. The support and encouragement of other SCI warriors has also been key!

I share this story, not to blame or complain, but to share an alternative perspective. Granted, I am not a physician and I am a parent (which makes me biased by my very role). However, I am grateful for what my teacher Dr. James Gordon at the Center for Mind-Body Medicine (cmbm) calls the “new medicine”. (It is worth saying that Dr. Gordon is a Harvard trained psychiatrist, and like so many of the Harvard-trained medical folks, he was left feeling that the current, Western medical model was missing some key components and so he created his own model.)

The “new medicine” puts the patient or, simply, the “person” at the center of their own healing and focuses on the strength and wisdom of the individual. The CMBM process uses ancient teachings and “medicine” that are based in science, to heal and to regulate the autonomic nervous system. I, myself, have witnessed first hand my own powerful healing and the healing of others who have experienced trauma, chronic pain, anxiety, panic attacks, and more. We also know that folks heal more quickly when they are connected to others. In fact, this is the reason we chose Craig Hospital for Mason - because they had a community of young people. We also know that when folks have hope, support, and tools for healing, miracles can happen.

The tools and knowledge that I have gained in my work with CMBM, have been essential during this journey. Mason has become a gifted practitioner of using visualization and his own interoception and proprioception, as well as applying the principles of neuroplasticity in his training every day. Although his previous neural pathway to walk was “washed away”, at the time of the injury, he has established a new pathway for walking and now it is all about refining, repetition, and HOPE.

If you are interested in learning more about this “new medicine” model, check out the Center for Mind Body website which includes trainings and skills, white papers, testimony, and global partnerships.

I run at least one 8-week Mind-Body Medicine group online each year and I would be happy to share that information with you.