Photos by Rick Rappaport
Yvonne Farrell settles into a recliner. For the next five hours, chemo will fill her veins through an intravenous needle. It will leave her nauseated, fatigued, achy and weak. But it will help to kill the colon cancer cells in her body. The 44-year-old mother of twins knows she needs every possible weapon to battle her disease. "I want the latest technology and drugs, but I am also relying on ancient medicine." Farrell accompanies her semi-monthly chemo treatment with needles of a different sort – acupuncture. "I believe it's a great idea to marry all types of medicines," she says.
The Integrative Medicine Program at Providence Cancer Center strives to do just that – create the perfect union among various scientifically based medical approaches. "We started slow because we wanted traditional care providers to see that it was based in science," says Calvin Harrison, executive director of Providence Cancer Center. "Massage, acupuncture and naturopathy are important disciplines because these are the nontraditional services that seem to meet the needs of our patients most."