A New Attitude
Pediatric nurse opens nation's first alternative care center after the miraculous recovery of her premature infant

By Tamra Orr
March 14, 2003

Any mother who has cradled her newborn child in her arms knows the profound power of that moment. When that child is tiny—far tinier than nature ever intended—that power is frequently blanketed by worry and fear. For Michele O’Donnell, a pediatric nurse, the sight of her newborn daughter, born more than two months early, was terrifying. She knew what the chances of survival were for an infant who only weighed 2 pounds, 3 ounces. Today, it is a challenge; 30 years ago, it was a miracle.

But O’Donnell is all about miracles.

Through a combination of Christian faith and New Age holistic health attitudes, she now helps guide others to their own miracles.

O’Donnell has been a nurse for most of her life. In the 1960s, she was instrumental in setting up the first pediatrics ICU and the first pediatric coronary care unit in the nation. She was already mother to a 2-year-old daughter when her second daughter was born too soon.

“Lara had hyaline membrane disease when she was born,” O’Donnell recalled, “and she was unable to breathe in the air she needed. She had multiple cardiac arrests and soon the staff came in and told me that she would not make it. I refused to accept it; I was thinking with my heart and not my medical training,” she continued. “I snuck into the ICU to see her and when I did, I fainted. She was having seizures trying to breathe.”

The next morning, O’Donnell’s first miracle appeared in the form of a physician who had just arrived from Germany. It was his first day at the U.S. hospital and he was here to train American physicians in how to treat hyaline membrane disease.

“I was told that Lara had lung, heart and kidney disease,” O’Donnell said. “She also was blind in one eye and mentally retarded from lack of oxygen.” Despite this, the physicians continued to try Germany’s new treatments on Lara for a long and agonizing four months.

It was a terrible time for O’Donnell. Not only did she have a toddler at home and a critically ill infant in the hospital, but her husband had left her the day after she had Lara. “I was very scared and alone,” O’Donnell said.

Lara began breathing on her own when she was a little more than 4 months old; at 1 year, she was finally allowed to come home.

“She was a silent baby,” O’Donnell said. “She didn’t play or coo or smile.”

In fitting with the hospital’s dire diagnosis, Lara was unable to hold her head up, roll over or make eye contact with anyone. She still struggled with breathing and for many nights, O’Donnell slept with her small daughter on her chest, skin-to-skin, so that if she stopped breathing, she would feel it and could jostle her back awake. The family was living in the basement of a nursing home; that was all they could afford at the time.

For the first time in her life, O’Donnell turned to a higher power for help. “I fell on the rug and sobbed,” she said. “When no angels came and God didn’t make an appearance, I knew there was no God at all.”

Despite this, her life began to change after that night. A local church was praying for her also and O’Donnell began reading the Bible incessantly, almost obsessively. “It gave me hope that I wasn’t alone,” she said. “I devoured it.” Days and nights began to be filled with prayers for her daughter. “I just had this growing feeling inside me that everything was going to be all right,” she said.

It certainly didn’t seem to be all right. In fact, Lara’s condition did not improve in any way as the years passed. By age 3, she was still unable to support her head, her eyes were crossed and she was unable to make voluntary movements. All of that changed in O’Donnell’s most amazing miracle.

“I was at a friend’s house in the kitchen and I was holding Lara on my hip as always,” she said. “I was feeding pieces of cracker to her and when I paused, Lara reached out and grabbed a piece from my hand.”

The world stopped spinning in that moment. As O’Donnell looked at her daughter in amazement, Lara turned her head, her eyes uncrossed and she smiled at her mother for the first time in her life. “It’s like she ‘woke up,’ ” O’Donnell said. In the next couple of years, Lara continued to improve. “She learned how to crawl and then to walk and by age 6, she was in school.”
Lara’s recovery was nothing short of astonishing. In high school, she was a cheerleader. At Southwestern Texas University, she received a degree in criminal justice, then at St. Mary’s, she became a lawyer. Now, at 32, she is the assistant to the attorney general of Austin, Texas.
Quite understandably, O’Donnell wanted to know why her daughter recovered. It became her new life mission and it led to three years of Bible college and being ordained into the ministry.

“After I graduated, I still had no answers other than I didn’t want any part of this kind of religion,” she said with a chuckle. Although she taught some classes at the Bible school, she was soon asked to leave. “I had too many nontraditional ideas and methods,” she admitted.

Ironically, it was a pastor who introduced O’Donnell to the concept of alternative or holistic healing. “I thought he was nuts,” she said. “I didn’t want any part of it.”

However, after he had asked her three times to help him with the health concerns of his 300-plus congregation, she reluctantly agreed. She performed such diverse tests as hair analysis and urine tests. “I thought it was all some kind of voodoo,” she said. The incredible results she saw soon changed her mind—and set the course of her future.

Today, O’Donnell operates the nation’s first alternative care center in the Southwest. The stories she has to tell from her years there are astounding. Her secretary and “right-hand woman” Kay, for example, started out as one of her patients.

“The first time she came here,” O’Donnell said, “she was carried in by her husband. Due to multiple sclerosis, she had not been able to walk in five years.” Within seven months at O’Donnell’s clinic, Kay was walking. Within two years, she was—and continues to be—symptom-free.

Clients come to O’Donnell’s clinic from all over the world now. Most recover from diseases as devastating as lupus and cancer, according to O’Donnell. What does she do that is so effective? It seems to be a combination of the traditional—exercise, detoxing diet and rest—and the untraditional—a new attitude.

“We each have a consciousness of disease,” she said, “and so many of us talk about when we are going to get sick, not if. We are locked into expectations of disease and this raises fear within us. Belief, fear and the perception of certain disease can actually change our genes,” she said. “If we stand and stare at disease, gasping at its horror, intensity and power to utterly devastate, we have totally empowered it over our lives. In short, our very thoughts need to be ‘detoxified.’ ”

O’Donnell also advocates that people get in touch with something inside themselves that is whole and quiet to help them find healing. When asked if that something is God, she replied, “It is whatever a person wants it to be … for some it is change; for others it’s DNA—whatever higher power they choose. That is their god.”

In an attempt to share her thoughts and experiences with the world, O’Donnell wrote and self-published a book, Of Monkeys and Dragons: Freedom from the Tyranny of Disease.

“This book is my feeble attempt to tell people what has happened to me,” O’Donnell said.

To date, it has sold more than 20,000 copies and her clinic has an eight-month waiting list. O’Donnell is traveling the United States lecturing on her theories and techniques, and she sponsors regular retreats. In addition to this, she has her own radio show on three different stations in Florida and Texas.

O’Donnell’s advice for nurses is clear. “We don’t choose nursing,” she said. “It chooses us because it intended for us to heal, not just comfort, but heal. If nurses open up their hearts to the possibilities, it can happen. I talk to nurses and they cry because they feel like they live under a cloud of despair and hopelessness. The belief that life and love are stronger than disease can give them hope.”

For more information on O’Donnell, her clinic, retreats, radio shows and book, visit www.micheleodonnell.com.