{"id":124,"date":"2006-04-27T15:16:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-27T13:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/?p=124"},"modified":"2009-12-29T14:35:02","modified_gmt":"2009-12-29T12:35:02","slug":"the-power-of-positive-hamstering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/2006\/04\/the-power-of-positive-hamstering\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Positive Hamstering"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nIt was the seventh week of Merav\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest illness<\/a>. Sharp and constant pains still pierced her abdomen. She felt dizzy and weak, no doubt in part a result of self-imposed starvation as the very thought of food in her current condition nauseated her. Her head pounded and her joints ached.<\/p>\n

As we headed to the Family Medical Center after a night where she (and we, her parents) slept only a few brief hours, I felt sure her doctor would order her immediate hospitalization, if nothing else than to pump her up with nutrients so she wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t waste away. We were, suffice it to say, in quite a panic.<\/p>\n

But Dr. N didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t send us packing for Hadassah<\/a>. Instead, he carefully read through the summaries written by the specialists and technicians who had conducted various rounds of tests on Merav over the course of the last two months. He then read us the results, confirming what we already knew.<\/p>\n

Her colonoscopy<\/a> was clear, he said, So were the results from her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Upper GI<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (a test that involves swallowing radioactive barium and then x-raying the liquid as it makes its way downward). Her blood results \u00e2\u20ac\u201c completely normal too.<\/p>\n

He then turned to my twelve-year-old daughter. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Merav,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can find no sign of disease. Nothing acute or life threatening. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time you start to see yourself as a healthy girl again. You need to get back into a normal routine and life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

That should have been the best news of the day. Yet I must have looked horrified. That was it<\/span>? After everything she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been through, after all the poking and prodding, the drinking of foul fluids and being told there was nothing we could do but wait patiently for another round of tests while Merav writhed in pain, her knees held tight against her chest begging me nightly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Abba, make the pain go away.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the end of it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re fine, now get on with your life?<\/p>\n

Perhaps sensing my confusion, Dr. N wisely chose…to avoid me completely. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you think you can do that, think of yourself as healthy?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he continued, looking straight at Merav.<\/p>\n

Merav shook her head. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. It hurts too much.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I finally found my voice. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Are you saying\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said to Dr. N, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that this has all be in Merav\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head? That the whole illness was \u00e2\u20ac\u201c no\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6is<\/span> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c something psychosomatic?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Of course that wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t what he was saying at all. He proffered his best guess: Merav was suffering from something called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153IBS\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c short for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153irritable bowel syndrome<\/a>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s diagnosed primarily through process of elimination. There are no physical signs of disease in the body, but the symptoms are very real. Merav certainly didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bring this on herself, Dr. N assured us. And it was probably totally unconnected to her illness the previous year.<\/p>\n

Then, perhaps to make me feel better, he prescribed a cocktail of anti-spasmodics, pain killers and paraffin oil<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, Dr. N is not normally from the school of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tough love\u00e2\u20ac\u009d medicine. So, as he nearly threw us out of his office, I wondered if maybe there was some method to this seeming madness.<\/p>\n

I decided to play along. Despite my frustration, I would try to see Merav as healthy again. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never been a big believer in the whole \u00e2\u20ac\u0153power of positive thinking\u00e2\u20ac\u009d thing, but it was worth a try.<\/p>\n

No more doctors. No searching for the top pediatric rheumatologist<\/a> in town. No pushing to schedule an appointment with the head of infectious diseases at the children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hospital in Ramat Gan<\/a>. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d change our attitude. The seed had been planted. Time to let it grow, if only a little.<\/p>\n

And so the next morning, I said to Merav \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Would you like to come out to brunch with me and get some ice coffee?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Merav was initially reluctant, citing the usual aches and pains, but the idea grew on her. And before long we were walking to the Caf\u00c3\u00a9 Hillel on Emek Refaim Street where Merav ordered her favorite beverage, I got a chai masala<\/a> with soy milk (my favorite beverage), and we shared a chocolate croissant.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Can I have milk in my coffee?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she asked tentatively as we were ordering. What would normally have been a standard question had a meaning all of it own. For on top of everything else, during this period of illness we had taken Merav to a Chinese herbalist<\/a> who put her on a highly restrictive diet that included no dairy products or white flour.<\/p>\n

The diet had inadvertently contributed to her predicament: with most foods making her nauseous, the only ones she actually wanted were forbidden. She had been subsisting on two pieces of toast and jam a day for weeks, hardly enough calories<\/a> for a growing girl.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153As far as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m concerned, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pronouncing this diet null and void,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the doctor say you had to go back to your \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcregular\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 life?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Merav\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mood began to brighten.<\/p>\n

As we were sipping our drinks and soaking in the buzz of a Friday morning in Jerusalem when the cafes are all packed and the streets flow like the proverbial milk and honey with friends and acquaintances from the neighborhood, my cell phone rang. It was our good friend Ruth<\/a> who had taken a keen interest in Merav; the two had been close since her previous illness the year before.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ruth said she wanted to buy Merav a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153small animal.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She had been struck by a hunch that Merav might find it beneficial to take care of another living creature. I gave the phone over to Merav.<\/p>\n

Merav nearly jumped out of her seat. She launched into a stream of consciousness chatter that was downright invigorating. It had been a long time since so much energy had come out of our little girl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body.<\/p>\n

Ruth picked Merav up and they headed for the pet store where they lovingly held and evaluated all seven hamsters available before settling on a cute little critter that Merav named \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mazie\u00e2\u20ac\u009d after the imagined talking dog in the Judy Blume<\/a> book \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Just As Long as We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re Together<\/a>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The pet store put together a spacious cage at Ruth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s request with a running wheel, various colorful crawling tubes and a little house. Merav held and watched and generally stayed transfixed on Mazie the rest of the day\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6and the next day\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6and pretty much the day after too.<\/p>\n

Her pain passed and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been 100% better ever since.<\/p>\n

While they were out shopping, Ruth told us later that Merav had commented that she gets \u00e2\u20ac\u0153very attached to things\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that sometimes she finds it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hard to let go.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Could she have gotten attached to the concept of being ill?<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe that this was all in her head. Neither does Dr. N, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure. But what he understood \u00e2\u20ac\u201c apparently before any of us \u00e2\u20ac\u201c was that holding on to a concept of being \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sick\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can impede a healthy recovery just as cruelly as a purely physical condition. His admonition to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153get back into life\u00e2\u20ac\u009d spurred all of us into action.<\/p>\n

Can one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thoughts really affect health in such a profound and real way? In our case, there seems to be no doubt. I like to call it “the power of positive hamstering.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was the seventh week of Merav\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest illness. Sharp and constant pains still pierced her abdomen. She felt dizzy and weak, no doubt in part a result of self-imposed starvation as the very thought of food in her current condition nauseated her. Her head pounded and her joints ached. As we headed to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1234,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/1234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}