The healing power of touch

Last week we drew a line under the future prospect of our dog, loopy Lola, having puppies. On Tuesday morning I took her to the vet to be neutered.

I found this way more difficult than I’d anticipated. Right up to the last moment found myself masochistically googling Viszla puppies on pets4homes, cooing over cute fur-babies, and questioning whether we were doing the right thing. My kids told me to get a grip - to make and own my decision and deal with it. Embarrassingly, I cried in front of the vet when I dropped her off.

I was thrown by the strength of my reaction. After all, hadn’t I been arguing against having puppies? However much anyone else in the family might think they’d be cute (and they would be), it would undoubtedly be me giving up more than two months of my life to sleepless nights, endless puppy poo, and increasingly futile efforts to keep my cool when surrounded by 10 yapping, ankle-biting pups.

But when it finally came to it, I was almost swayed by a deep yearning for the sense of wonder and aliveness that puppies could bring into our home. A visceral urge to drink in life in all its largesse.

And then my head stepped in. The reality of needing to go back to work, knowing that puppies would sap my energy, frazzle my nerves and leave me gasping for sleep – all things that run counter to all the advice on how to avoid a cancer recurrence. So, neutering was a pragmatic decision, yes, but one that left me feeling angry that cancer was shaping yet another area of my life. My primary objective this year is to recover and do everything I can to not experience a cancer recurrence. My secondary is to say yes to all that life has to offer. But sometimes those are in contradiction. Rationally I understand that anything that threatens my primary objective needs to go. But it’s not easy, and I was struck in the moment of decision by a real sense of loss.

After ruefully dropping Lola at the vets, I went for a massage. The timing was no coincidence – I wanted to do something special for myself while I waited to hear from the vet. I have been missing massage and body-work so much this past year, but until now it has felt like it might just be one thing too much for my beaten body to tolerate.

And so I arrived already feeling a little fragile and upended. After some introductory small-talk we embarked on the pre-treatment questionnaire. Gone are the days for me when this was just a quick formality. Once again I couldn’t help but notice a sense of sadness, a recognition that instead of being someone who lightly skips through such forms blithely ticking ‘no’ to every question, I am now someone now plods heavily through, ticking ‘yes’ time and again, and needing to offer additional information for at least half the questions.

Form completed, the therapist asked me what I wanted from the treatment. I told her I felt the need to land. To come back into myself. Stripped down, I slipped under the heavy cover on the heated massage table, stripped back and slightly bashful in the nakedness of my new body.

After a few moments breathing in the calming stillness and tranquillity, I felt the weight of the blanket being gently lifted and soft, hot flannels being stroked across the soles of my feet. And just like that I started to unravel. That one simple action made me feel instantly and deeply nurtured, cared for, held. Given permission to come undone. Given permission to land.

Her touch was sensitive, but profound. Possibly softened by an already emotional morning, as she worked up my body it felt quite literally as if my body was weeping. I can describe it no other way. Even the word crying doesn’t fit. It was as if, as she stroked, stretched and smoothed my exhausted muscles, she was drawing sadness out from my very core, like a cellist drawing out a doleful lament. It felt as if her very touch was unlocking deep cellular level trauma, and my body was thanking me for finally listening to it.

While COVID robbed me of precious physical contact with many family and friends when I needed it most, I have been touched a lot this past year. But most of it has been of a very different quality. Although ostensibly about caring for my health it has been a cold, clinical touch - sticking needles in my arms, hands, thighs; cutting me open; rearranging my body to be sure radiotherapy rays will land right; brutally pounding my armpit to break down painful cording. And so, usually a very tactile and sensuous person, I have by necessity become partially physically desensitised, numbed.

And, to a large extent, the same has happened emotionally. Some of the harder emotions hiding in the shadows this year have been too big, too overwhelming, too hot to approach, even within the confines of my own head. And I have certainly found them far too hard to share easily with others. And so, I have by necessity become partially emotionally desensitised, numbed.

I have been in many other states - survival mode, one foot in-front of the other mode, coping mode, being what-I-think-others-need-me-to-be-in-the-moment mode, gratitude mode, thank-fuck-I’m-alive mode. But what I haven’t been able to find and sit with so easily is the state in which I really experience the sadness, anger, loss and grief that come with a cancer diagnosis. I’ve known they're there, locked deep inside, and although committed to experiencing the full range of my emotional responses, I haven’t known quite how to draw them out and approach them safely.

But the gentle power of Emma’s conjuring touch coaxed my body to release, her hands like magnets drawing a suppressed sense of grief from deep in my body up, up towards the surface of my skin.

I cried throughout my treatment. I cried all the way home in the car. I came home, got into bed, curled up like a comma upon myself and sobbed wholeheartedly, in a way I am not sure I have done since I was diagnosed. Whole body, gut wrenching, snotty sobs. It was as if I could feel my tightly held fascia untwisting inside, releasing, creating space. Allowing me to listen to my body, and to all has been yearning to be heard.

It is commonly supposed that massage is dangerous for people with cancer. A sense that it might somehow ‘push’ cancer cells around our bodies. This is not true (although many spas and salons refuse access to people who have had a cancer diagnosis, some for many years after). All I can say is thank goodness my massage therapist was more compassionate and enlightened than this.

Touch is our first sensation.

Touch allows us to connect compassionately to our bodies. So important for someone living with cancer.

Touch reduces levels of the stress hormone, cortisol. So important for someone living with cancer.

Touch stimulates our vagus nerve, activating our parasympathetic nervous system and moving us into a state of ‘rest, recover and repair’. So important for someone living with cancer.

Touch is a powerful healer. A silent way of someone saying I see you, I feel your pain, I have you - you are not alone. So important for someone living with cancer.