Using Conventional and Energy Medicine Together
Using conventional and energy medicine together for fibroid healing — a personal story.
My daughter Tanya began feeling pain in the area over her ovaries when she was in her mid-thirties, and the early stages of fibroid growth were detected. Her symptoms included long periods with heavy bleeding, painful intercourse, bladder incontinence, blurry vision, and pain in her pelvis, back, legs, and arms. She was living in Boulder and my work had me traveling almost constantly. When I was able to visit and work with her, it was obvious which energies were most problematic: the second chakra, the stomach meridian (which travel right over the ovaries) and the small intestine (which governs the abdominals).
Ever my daughter, Tanya had been trying to manage her condition exclusively with holistic remedies. Some of the best complementary health practitioners in Boulder had worked on her, but even they could not crack the code. Even with all the care she was receiving, the fibroids did not shrink. In fact, after years of not increasing in size, they grew wildly during a nine-month period following an emotionally significant event that underscored the fact that she was now forty years old, had not had a child, yet desperately wanted one.
Many symptoms began to appear. Because so much blood was feeding the fibroid, she became anemic and extremely weak. She was having heavy periods with blood clots. Her doctors at Kaiser recommended a blood transfusion and a hysterectomy. She still wanted to have a baby, so she fiercely resisted the recommendation of a hysterectomy, and a deep instinct told her not to have a blood transfusion despite strong medical advice that her life was in danger if she didn’t.
We found an herbal combination, a powerful iron supplement called Floradix. It went into her cells as if were being injected, and brought her extreme anemia to a normal state. Her doctors expressed amazement. But even as the Floradix was helping her anemia, and the energy workers were making her feel better, her fibroid continued to grow. We were all in denial, hoping for that magical natural cure that would shrink the fibroid without her having to undergo a hysterectomy.
The final wake-up call was during a long-planned trip to Hawaii. After landing, Tanya noticed a hard swelling near her left ankle. That leg was also in terrible pain. I was alarmed. I told her that it sounded like a blood clot, a thrombosis, and that she and her partner had to go right away to a doctor to find out. It was evening, but they located a walk-in clinic. The doctor immediately identified it as a blood clot, which she confirmed with an X-ray. She said it would be life-threatening if it reached her groin. Tanya also would not be able to get on the plane to return home unless the clot was gone completely.
Tanya called me and I offered suggestions to her and her partner, including energy exercises to reduce the swelling and help with the pain. I also did long distance healing with her. By the time of Tanya’s planned return, the deep thrombosis had become a superficial thrombosis and the doctor assured her that she was out of harm’s way.
With this close call behind us, we realized that we needed to consider having her fibroid surgically removed, even though the idea terrified me. Fibroid tumors affect at least half of all women. The primary aggressive treatments (though not all need invasive procedures) are hysterectomy, myomectomy and embolization. While myomectomy and embolization look encouraging on the Web sites of the clinics that perform these procedures, each has risks we were not willing to entertain. As to hysterectomy — well, not only did Tanya still want a child, my desire for grandchildren trumped any objectivity on my part about that choice.
Trusting a Medical Maverick
As fate would have it, Tanya was at one of my classes and one of my advanced students gave her a session. She told us about a doctor who she believed had saved her own life. This was no ordinary doctor. This was a woman who had gotten laws passed in three states regarding stricter requirements for informed consent prior to hysterectomies. This was a woman who had strongly advocated for more sensible practices in gynecology, invented less invasive surgeries for a number of female problems, and had been a thorn in the side of many of her more traditional colleagues. This was also a woman who had lost her license to practice medicine, perhaps for being a courageous pioneer, willing to utilize methods that were ahead of their time.
We met in a restaurant: Tanya, the doctor, and I. She quickly won our confidence. Her depth of knowledge permeated her answers to every question we asked. While I had learned very little I didn’t already know from the other doctors and healers who had been helping with Tanya’s fibroid, I learned a dazzling amount in a very short time about the issues and controversies in gynecology as she knowledgeably addressed each of our doubts and concerns. I was impressed by her humanity and caring for Tanya, for all her patients, for all women. She tuned in to Tanya’s fibroid energetically, over the French fries, and she knew it as I knew it.
With Tanya’s permission, she laid her right hand over the area of the fibroid, and at one point turned to me so Tanya wouldn’t hear and said, “She’s really at risk!” She knew all our options, was able to quickly go through each of the alternatives our research had revealed, and discussed the reasons for and the liabilities of each. For instance, with embolization, what they tell you is that it is an ingenious procedure where silicone pellets are injected up through the femoral artery to cut off the blood supply to the uterus so the fibroid can’t grow and ultimately shrinks because its blood supply has been cut. What they don’t tell you is that cutting off the blood supply to the uterus can shrink and mummify it, so that within two years women often have to have a hysterectomy anyway. Beyond this, it is possible for the silicone pellets to go astray and permanently compromise the blood supply to other parts of the body.
After going through the available alternatives, each quite undesirable, the doctor described a surgery she had developed in which the fibroid is delicately separated from the uterine lining bit by bit and the uterus is then repaired. Because her license had been revoked, she told us about the hospital in Tijuana where she was currently doing her surgeries. A few days later, Tanya checked in. While part of me was concerned about a doctor who had been disbarred from practice performing an unknown procedure in a Tijuana hospital, I was feeling deeply blessed that I had stumbled upon this maverick of a physician who seemed to have examined conditions such as Tanya’s from every conceivable angle and developed the most potent and compassionate ways of approaching them.
It was a tiny hospital with a capacity of only seven patients. Each private room had two beds, and a family member was expected to stay with the patient as advocate and support system. That honor went to me. Unlike American hospitals, the food was fabulous, cooked to order, and could be anything from gourmet dining to wheat grass juice. I prepared Tanya for the surgery by giving her extensive energy balancings several times per day in the days between the decision to proceed and the actual surgery.
David [Donna’s husband] had been giving her energy psychology sessions to prepare for the event emotionally. Besides addressing her natural fears about a highly invasive procedure and bolstering her confidence and positive expectations about the surgery, one of the themes of their work together was Tanya’s lifelong reluctance to act decisively when someone, particularly a boyfriend, was hurting her. Cutting out a growth that was clearly doing great damage was a perfect metaphor for this issue. By the time of the surgery, she understood the metaphor perfectly and was feeling a warrior’s determination to ward off anything attacking her or her body.
The Spirit of Surgery
On the morning of the surgery, besides balancing Tanya, I insisted on balancing the doctor as well. When the surgery began, I was there, scrubbed in with mask and gown, and there I remained through the whole four-and-a-half-hour procedure. Our surgeon, a second doctor who was the owner of the hospital, a nurse, and the anesthesiologist were also all in the room. I was given the opportunity to energy test Tanya on the sedatives and local anesthesia that were going to be used. The choice and the dosages tested out well; the dosage was perfect for Tanya’s body. I considered this a good sign about the medical team’s intuition and attunement. To lend energetic support during the incision, I held my fingers about an inch and a half above Tanya’s forehead, over the main neurovascular stress points, to keep her body from going into any kind of shock.
I thought for a moment that I wouldn’t be able to watch the knife slice into my daughter’s flesh, but I decided that I must force myself to witness the entire procedure. To my surprise, I wasn’t a bit woozy. While I knew that the energy psychology had helped me prepare emotionally, a healing energy beyond anything I might have expected, and larger than any of us there, entered the room. We were suddenly in a loving, healing, sacred space. It was like an aura surrounding us, perhaps a product of the good doctors, the humble hospital, my love, and Tanya’s spirit. It was palpable. I felt strong and glad to be there.
The cut was made. A large chunk of flesh had to be cut out in order to free the uterus. Directly beneath Tanya’s skin, going four inches downward was a thick layer of fat that had to be cut out. It was a creamy yellow and salmon color, with a healthy glow. I’d never thought of fat as I did in that moment. You saw instantly the necessity for fat in the body, to buffer your organs and bones, and why a woman is designed to carry more fat around her middle than a man. That fat protects the baby, as well as all the female organs. The shock to me was how beautiful the fat was, and how beautiful was the energy it emitted. It is a buffer that is there to comfort and protect. Society has given a bad name to this magnificent cushion. I’ve been much more accepting of my lust for Dairy Queens ever since.
The surgeon’s hands disappeared into Tanya’s body and reemerged with her uterus, now a hard, reddish-pink, glistening sphere slightly larger than a basketball. It was shiny and so taut it looked as if it were ready to pop. I instantly understood that there had been no time to waste — the need for this surgery had been urgent. The doctor lifted Tanya’s uterus and placed it on her abdomen, attached now only by ligaments. Its energy was filled with a light that was so beautiful, it took my breath away.
When the knife cut into Tanya’s uterus to begin to remove the fibroid, something shocking happened. With the first slit into the uterus, an energy sprayed out that was exactly the opposite of what I had been seeing. Rather than a beautiful healthy glow, it looked like an evil, dark force. I didn’t have any visual cues from looking at her uncut uterus, even its energies, that such a force was held inside it. Not only was the energy ugly, so was the fibroid that was to be removed. It was one of the ugliest things I’d ever seen. I immediately had the thought that it held years of psychological trauma and pain. It was a terrible energy; it looked absolutely malevolent, both as a red, disorganized blob and in the energies it was emitting.
Tanya’s energy, by contrast, looked so pure. She was an innocent lying there, while a negativity that seemed absolutely evil had lodged and taken a strong hold in her body. It came to me in a flood that the surgery was the most holistic thing we could do, to cut out this darkness from Tanya’s body, from her life. The surgeon, on first seeing the fibroid, said, in memorable understatement, “I’ll bet Tanya’s been in a bad mood for a long time.”
To remove the fibroid in one piece would have required a cut that the uterus could not have survived, so the fibroid was cut in two. The first part to be removed was as big as a huge melon. It adhered to the inside of the uterus, so the surgeons had to very delicately cut it away. The care that went into this — small snippet by small snippet — was astounding. While Tanya’s uterus was sitting on her stomach, the doctors had their instruments inside it, like working in a tiny cave. Their painstaking steps were ensuring that Tanya’s uterus would be preserved. The whole process was amazingly respectful of the integrity of her body.
When the last of the fibroid had finally been cut away from the uterus, along with some 25 fibroid “seeds,” everyone in the room took a big sigh. Hours of care and precision had succeeded in separating and removing the invader. Throughout the surgery, clamps had been used, so there was virtually no bleeding. I was awed by the skill and care I was witnessing. Except for brief, soft communications, the operating room had been in a holy silence throughout this battle to excise the fibroid without destroying Tanya’s uterus. Now lively, light classical music was brought in as the process began of stitching the uterus back together. It was not just a matter of closing the incision. Wounds remained wherever the fibroid had adhered to the inside lining of the uterus. So the doctors were now sewing the inside of the uterus, determined to leave it strong enough to carry my grandchildren. At various points along the way, the surgeon explained to me why she was choosing a particular procedure rather than an alternative for the purpose of preserving Tanya’s fertility.
When the uterus was completely sewn up, the lead surgeon stood back, looked at the other doctor, nodded her head, and smiled. This was his cue to lift the uterus from Tanya’s stomach and cup it in his hands. His arms were outstretched and he placed his head in his forearms. All was silent. The music had been cut off. No one spoke. He continued in this posture for what I would guess was at least three minutes. Then he stood up, took a breath, and placed the uterus back on Tanya’s stomach.
At this point, the surgeon told me, “He is helping the cells in her womb remember what it was like before they were harmed.” She explained, “Cells hold memories!” (as if this weren’t one of the core premises on which my career is built). Then she nodded to him, and he again lifted and held the uterus for what seemed to be another three minutes. When he did this, everyone else in the room was in a quiet reverence.
This was a most sacred experience, like being at a holy altar during a high spiritual ceremony. I told the doctor that it looked as if he was praying. Taken aback, he said, “Well . . . I was.” Then they placed Tanya’s uterus back in her body and did the final stitching. When the surgery was completed, Tanya opened her eyes and smiled at me. As we had planned, I began to give her another energy session to help her body restore after the trauma of surgery.
Had we not been led to this unusual surgeon, Tanya almost certainly would have been forced to have a hysterectomy, and in any case, would have lost the possibility of carrying a baby. Now, at the time of this writing, it is still a choice she can make. The full consequences of a hysterectomy are often not disclosed to women. For instance, the female organs are tightly arranged so that removing the uterus, even if it is prolapsed, may itself cause a prolapse, a falling out of place, of another organ. While the procedure should never be done casually, hysterectomies are performed almost routinely in the United States. They are carried out at nearly double the rate of that in England or Europe, suggesting that social and economic forces within the medical system are a strong factor in determining whether a hysterectomy is to be performed.
Nonetheless, my indebtedness and gratitude for the tools of modern medicine were immense around the time of Tanya’s surgery, and they will never be forgotten. Even though my professional role seems to have become one that challenges the medical profession to expand its paradigm and soften its arrogance and rigidity, when surgery or pharmaceuticals are required and skillfully administered, I can only watch with awed respect that humanity has devised such marvels of compassion and healing. Tanya was, of course, very fortunate to have found a physician who also thinks outside the box, but ultimately it was her surgical skills that saved the day.
Excerpted and adapted from Donna Eden’s Energy Medicine for Women (Revised Edition). New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2008.
Donna Eden is among the world’s most sought after spokespersons for energy medicine and her abilities as a healer are legendary. Her bestselling book, Energy Medicine, is the authoritative text in its field. Learn more about her books and classes at http://www.LearnEnergyMedicine.com.
