Tips for Bedside Visitors

We know that you don’t need anyone to coach you or instruct you in lovingly reaching out and touching your loved one: holding her hand, putting a (warm or cool) wash cloth on his forehead or giving her a hug. My offering here is to help extend and enhance what you so naturally know how to do in helping your loved one heal.

Our excitement about the healing potential of bedside visits came from someone I know who did “bedside ballet” with his mother-in-law shortly after she suffered a stroke. Family members credited this activity with helping her regain a significant amount of body mobility and vitality over the next few years.

My last visit with my own 85-year-old mother was also an inspiration. She also had suffered a stroke – in her case multiple strokes. Just months earlier, she’d had a spring her step. Now, she drooped over in her wheelchair.

The Power of Massage

She would let me rouse her from her position if I chose to – she loved me enough to marshal all her energy to respond. But rousing her was intrusive. Instead, I asked her what she felt about her situation. She roused herself and said, “It stinks!” and went back to the drooping position. The situation did stink – she was tired of her body and was ready to leave it very soon.

But meanwhile, I wanted her to feel my loving and caring. So, I got some body lotion from the nursing staff and simply massaged my mother’s hands and shoulders. I found massaging her hands to be an intimate experience.

Even though I am a physically affectionate person and do a lot of hugging, until that moment I hadn’t experienced my mother’s hands close up since I was a young child. After massaging her hands for a few minutes, I brought her back to her room. And that was the last time I saw my mother alive. A very sad time, but a very poignantly connected experience.

Closeness at the Bedside

You can have a similarly intimate experience by using your heart and your intuition to guide you in what you already do naturally. Perhaps your loved one simply wants to enjoy your company, not to do anything else but hang out together. Take the lead from him. You can try things out and quickly get a sense if it’s appropriate. E

We recommend that, in addition to continually checking with your loved one, you consult with his or her attending nurse, physician, physical therapist or other healing professional about the appropriateness, timing and intensity of doing any particular activity. Remember, you are all on the same healing team.

These activities are about healing possibilities, not limitations. You and your loved one will, together, discover what those possibilities are for you. Let your heart tell you what’s the best thing to do right now.

Read more on Open to Hope by Bernie Siegel: https://www.opentohope.com/we-dont-die-our-bodies-do/

Check out Dr. Siegel’s books at Amazon.com : bernie siegel

Bernie Siegel

Dr. Bernie Siegel, who prefers to be called Bernie, not Dr. Siegel, was born in Brooklyn, NY. He attended Colgate University and Cornell University Medical College. He holds membership in two scholastic honor societies, Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha and graduated with honors. His surgical training took place at Yale New Haven Hospital, West Haven Veteran’s Hospital and the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. He retired from practice as an assistant clinical professor of surgery at Yale of general and pediatric surgery in 1989 to speak to patients and their caregivers. In 1978 he originated Exceptional Cancer Patients, a specific form of individual and group therapy utilizing patients’ drawings, dreams, images and feelings. ECaP is based on “carefrontation,” a safe, loving therapeutic confrontation, which facilitates personal lifestyle changes, personal empowerment and healing of the individual’s life. The physical, spiritual and psychological benefits which followed led to his desire to make everyone aware of his or her healing potential. He realized exceptional behavior is what we are all capable of. Bernie, and his wife and coworker Bobbie, live in a suburb of New Haven, Connecticut. They have five children and eight grandchildren. Bernie and Bobbie have co-authored their children, books and articles. Their home with its many children, pets and interests resembled a cross between a family art gallery, museum, zoo and automobile repair shop. It still resembles these things, although the children are trying to improve its appearance in order to avoid embarrassment. In 1986 his first book, Love. Medicine & Miracles was published. This event redirected his life. In 1989 Peace, Love & Healing and in 1993 How To Live Between Office Visits followed. He is currently working on other books with the goal of humanizing medical education and medical care, as well as, empowering patients and teaching survival behavior to enhance immune system competency. Bernie’s realization that we all need help dealing with the difficulties of life, not just the physical ones, led to Bernie writing his fourth book in 1998 Prescriptions for Living. It helps people to become aware of the eternal truths and wisdom of the sages through Bernie’s stories and insights rather than wait a personal disaster. He wants to help people fix their lives before they are broken, and thus not have to become strong at the broken places. Published in 2003 are Help Me To Heal to empower patients and their caregivers and 365 Prescriptions For The Soul, in 2004 a children’s book about how difficulties can become blessings, Smudge Bunny, in 2005 101 Exercises For The Soul and out in the Fall of 2006 a prescriptions for parenting book Love, Magic & Mud Pies. Published in 2008 Buddy’s Candle, for children of all ages, related to dealing with the loss of a loved one, be it a pet or parent, and to be published in 2009 Faith, Hope & Healing with survivor stories and my reflections about what they teach us. Woody Allen once said, “If I had one wish it would be to be somebody else.” Bernie’s wish was to be a few inches taller. His work has been such a growth experience that he is now a few inches taller. His prediction is that in the next decade the role of consciousness, spirituality, non-local healing, body memory, and heart energy will all be explored as scientific subjects. For many, Bernie needs no introduction. He has touched many lives all over our planet. In 1978 he began talking about patient empowerment and the choice to live fully and die in peace. As a physician, who has cared for and counseled innumerable people whose mortality has been threatened by an illness, Bernie embraces a philosophy of living and dying that stands at the forefront of the medical ethics and spiritual issues our society grapples with today. He continues to assist in the breaking of new ground in the field of healing and personally struggling to live the message of kindness and love. Dr. Siegel appeared on the radio show “Healing the Grieving Heart” with Dr. Gloria & Dr. Heidi Horsley to discuss Finding Thanksgiving After Loss.