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At the time, Cathie Haynes, MS, RN, had no idea how
the unexplained death of a teenager would influence
her and shape her thoughts about health care: the Western
system we know vs. Traditional Chinese Medicine and
similar models of India and Japan.
At the autopsy, there was no way to pinpoint the cause
of the teenager’s death. Haynes, then early in
a 25-year career as a critical care nurse, said a physician
told her that the girl willed herself to die, that “she
didn’t want to be on the planet anymore.”
It was then that Haynes began paying attention to critical
care patients who were expected to recover but didn’t,
and those who, by all rights, should have died but didn’t.
“Being a very curious person, I just started
observing more. I didn’t really do much with it
until I got sick in the ’90s. One morning, I couldn’t
get out of bed,” she said.
This from an RN who typically worked 12-hour days,
set up an outpatient cardiac rehabilitation program
at Loma Linda University, was an assistant professor
at the University of Arizona College of Nursing, was
on staff for the study behind Dean Ornish’s book,
Stress, Diet & Your Heart, and was head nurse of
several intensive care units.
“The Western system couldn’t tell me what
was wrong,” Haynes said.
Most physicians regard the chronic fatigue syndrome
that stole her career, as well as her personal pursuits—she
ran 40 miles a week, tended a garden and cared for two
Siberian Huskies—as a catchall for which there
is no test for diagnosis and, therefore, no treatment.
“So I started looking for ways of healing myself,”
Haynes said.
In thought, that took her back to the teen who willed
herself to die. And in practice, it twice took her to
China, most recently in October, as she immersed herself
in Traditional Chinese Medicine and healing.
In sharing her experience and the dichotomies of West
and East, Haynes said she would like to see nurses at
least examine their practices, the effects of the care
they provide and the possibility that there are alternatives.
Alternative care, however, is not the correct term;
it’s integrative care, the fusion of West and
East. Integrative care is common in China, with the
medical community there adopting Western practices far
more readily than Eastern methods are accepted here.
Nonetheless, integrative care is taking hold, slowly
but surely, in California and elsewhere, Haynes said.
Haynes went on to become a certified Enneagram teacher,
which involves the study of personality and spiritual
paths, and a habitat restorationist in Sonoma County,
where she lives.
Based on overcoming her illness, these are among Haynes’
recommendations for nurses:
- Be open to seeing limitations of the system you
know.
- Be curious and ask questions.
- Try Traditional Chinese Medicine herbal remedies
that are innocuous at worst and have proven for ages
to be therapeutic: Yin Chiao or Gan Mao Ling at the
first sign of a cold. Chinese Curing Pills for upset
stomach. Inhaled steam from fresh thyme boiled in
water for inflamed or infected sinuses. And fresh
garlic in organic olive oil for ear infections.
- Listen to patients when they describe their illness
because they have the best view of what is happening
with them.
Haynes said her road to recovery began with learning
qi gong, a body exercise that also moves internal subtle
energy or what the Chinese call 'qi' (pronounced chi).
“What it is, is the life force energy. When it
leaves, we die,” she said. “The Western
system is the only system in the world that doesn’t
deal with subtle energy. We’ve excluded it because
it can’t be measured. The existence can’t
be seen in the physical body.”
Which is why doctors were unable to explain the teenager's
death all those years ago, Haynes said.
Feeling a little better each day through qi gong, she
was encouraged to further explore diet, Traditional
Chinese Medicine, which is herbal remedies, and acupuncture.
On her first trip to China four years ago, Haynes arranged
for a physical at a Chinese hospital. It included an
abdominal sonogram and blood work, followed by an examination
by an internist of her choice, a woman in her 60s who
took her pulses at the wrists, looked at her tongue,
checked her earlobes and looked at the lines in her
hands. She then asked Haynes to speak about what was
wrong, listening not for the American words, which she
didn’t understand, but for how Haynes breathed
and how fast she talked.
"It's another assessment tool," Haynes said.
At the pharmacy, an herbologist filled the internist’s
prescription, mixing herbs to be brewed into strong
tea.
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There are many Traditional Chinese Medicine
stores, like this one in Hong Kong, to purchase
herbs and ingredients for prescriptions.
-Photo courtesy of Cathie Haynes
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Most diseases experienced in our culture are related
to disrupted, congested [stagnant] or depleted qi or
life force energy,” Haynes said.
Qi is but one fundamental difference between West and
East, Haynes said.
"Another is the allopathic model of treating symptoms
vs. Traditional Chinese Medicine as a healing system,
she said. That is closely tied to a third difference:
reliance on the patient as the expert in his or her
own body instead of the caregiver as expert.
“Doctors who deal with the kidneys, doctors who
deal with the stomach, doctors who deal with the brain
and the heart. There are very few physicians now who
deal with the whole person,” Haynes said. “Other
systems see the body as a whole and when one part doesn’t
work, it affects the whole.”
She said one reason why Western health care is so expensive
is that physicians, fragmented into uncountable specialties,
assume a worst-case scenario when they encounter a symptom.
They’re as quick to order a CT scan as their Chinese
counterparts are to consider a tier of treatments progressing
from the most elementary.
In China, she said, "First they will look at how
you eat and they’ll alter how you eat. If you
have a system that’s inflamed, then you want to
have things that are cooling." Next, they recommend
qi gong, in which specific movements are prescribed
for certain conditions. If symptoms persist, they’ll
move on to herbal medicines. As a last resort, there
is acupuncture, which is considered as invasive as any
Western surgery. Diet, qi gong, herbal remedies and
acupuncture are the treatment modalities of Traditional
Chinese Medicine.
Part and parcel of that fragmentation is that caregivers,
be they physicians or nurses with their own specialties,
tend to believe they are the experts in what is best
for the patient, Haynes said. In China, however, the
individual is seen as the expert.
Medical charts are the property of patients, who choose
their physicians and the treatment they receive. Haynes
was given her chart as it was drafted in a college essay-type
book and has it at home with her.
"I'm the person who’s expert in my body,"
Haynes said. "I know what makes it feel better
or makes it feel worse."
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