Category: Ways to relax

Relaxing with art

Posted hopePosted in Art

Our kid loved art — it was her best friend, and helped her relax as well as heal. She loved it so much that we decided to fill an entire wall with art 😉

She liked all types of art — from doodling, cartooning, sketching, and watercolor, to acrylic on canvas. We picked the style and difficulty depending on her energy levels and motor control. We saved acrylic for days with more energy and fine motor control. Otherwise, the more frequent ones were doodles, sketches, and cartoons.

During consolidation, she got a nice lightweight boogie board as a gift. She loved it and started doodling like crazy — she drew doodles of us, her grandparents, her favorite princesses and characters. We also used it to play games like hangman and pictionary. We took that along everywhere, to the clinic visits as well as hospital stays. It became our lightweight companion.

Apart from art, we also tried crafts like big melty beads, stained glass, shrink art and clay charms (beware: some of these involve a bit more of parental help).

This post will be incomplete without emojis. Our kid simply LOVED emojis. Through her several hospital stays during Interim Maintenance in the months of December and January, she spent a lot of time making cards with emojis for the nurses and her hospital friends. Some of the nurses called her the “emoji girl”! This one is my favorite, it took her a couple of days. Guess what she used to draw the faces? Small hospital cups for medicine and mouthwash. 😉 She made this card for the nurses and staff at Kaiser, and they loved it so much that they hung it on their display board for several weeks. She was so touched by their kind gesture, that she drew more emoji cards. Lol!

Overall, art has been super relaxing for our kid, and continues to be her favorite thing to do each day. Did someone say art can be therapeutic? You bet!

The joy of Music & Dance

Posted hopePosted in Music & Dance

When our daughter’s treatment started, and her social life came to a grinding halt, we needed to think of new ways to keep her happy. She was a very active kid before, and now, she was suddenly confined to the four walls of the house (barring the clinic and hospital of course). No playdates, no school, no classes… That’s enough to drive any kid nuts…

Art, music and dance gave her something to look forward to — a new way to express herself and her feelings. Thanks to their combined relaxing effects, our kid morphed from a victim of cancer to a brave and positive-spirited fighter.

For months, our five year old had been asking for piano lessons. We didn’t take her seriously earlier. Now, we couldn’t bear to ignore her request. We searched around, got lucky and found a really sweet piano teacher who was willing to come home to teach our daughter. Our kid was so thrilled that she would practice her lessons eagerly. I still remember how excited she was when she finished the first book (level A). She couldn’t stop telling everyone at home about her graduation! 🙂

We also had fun making up our own silly songs. One of these songs became her favorite lullaby. Whenever she was sad, or in pain, or had a bad dream, we hugged each other and I would sing this song, while rocking her. She would fall asleep like a baby. When she was awake and felt silly, she would add her own funny lyrics to this song.

“She is so brave,
she is so kind,
she is so loving all the time.
She gives and gives
a lot of love.
She gives and gives
a lot of joy.
She is an awesome listener,
she is a terrific helper.
She is the best gift that we received,
we love her very much!”

Her other favorite songs were Rachel Platten’s “Fight song”, Katy Perry’s “Happy Birthday”, “Unconditionally”, “Roar”, “Fireworks”, and Shakira’s “Waka Waka”. She loved to dance to these songs. Besides fun, this was an awesome way to exercise and strengthen her muscles weakened by chemotherapy.

My fondest memory is when she completed the 6 rounds of intra muscular shots (one on each thigh, total of 12 shots) during the consolidation phase. She was so happy all the shots were over, that when she came home, she turned on loud music and danced like crazy for an hour!! It was the most innocent and beautiful victory dance that we had seen…  

Take a deep breath… Relax… Sleep…

Posted hopePosted in Take a deep breath

 

Our kid drew a doodle and told the child psychologist, “I can’t sleep at night”.

On most nights, she had trouble falling asleep. She started hating nights as it brought back ugly memories from the initial hospital stay — from being poked at night in the ER, to  port leaks, dressing changes near the chest, monitors beeping loud every now and then, nurses rushing in and out… The result was intense emotional trauma. She had multiple night terrors, where she‘ld wake up crying hysterically. She was so scared of what may happen at night, that she did not want to sleep…

Continued sleeplessness over weeks was driving us tired and insane. Desperate, we tried anything and everything that the doctors and our friends suggested. Bedtime routine of shower, followed by storytime, lullabies, calming nightlights, a cozy tent with favorite stuffed toys… Somehow nothing seemed to work… We went to the child psychologist, but that wasn’t of much help either…

After trying various things, a couple of ideas that finally worked are rocking her to bed (yes, like a baby!) while singing a song or telling her a story, and trying the 7 minute Heartfulness relaxation technique while lying on bed. This is a simple technique that progressively relaxes each part of the body. Every time we tried it, she and my husband were fast asleep before we completed the script! 😉