{"id":10327,"date":"2006-11-16T03:01:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-16T03:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/production.ou.org\/life\/other\/the_power_of_positive_hamstering\/"},"modified":"2015-10-22T06:29:27","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T11:29:27","slug":"the_power_of_positive_hamstering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/parenting\/the_power_of_positive_hamstering\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Positive Hamstering"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image\"<\/div>\n

It was the seventh week of Merav\u2019s latest illness. Sharp and constant pains still pierced her abdomen. She felt dizzy and weak, no doubt in part a result of self-imposed starvation as the very thought of food in her current condition nauseated her. Her head pounded and her joints ached.<\/p>\n

As we headed to the Family Medical Center after a night where she (and we, her parents) slept only a few brief hours, I felt sure her doctor would order her immediate hospitalization, if nothing else than to pump her up with nutrients so she wouldn\u2019t waste away. We were, suffice it to say, in quite a panic.<\/p>\n

But Dr. N didn\u2019t send us packing for Hadassah. Instead, he carefully read through the summaries written by the specialists and technicians who had conducted various rounds of tests on Merav over the course of the last two months. He then read us the results, confirming what we already knew.<\/p>\n

Her colonoscopy was clear, he said, So were the results from her \u201cUpper GI\u201d (a test that involves swallowing radioactive barium and then x-raying the liquid as it makes its way downward). Her blood results \u2013 completely normal too.<\/p>\n

He then turned to my twelve-year-old daughter. \u201cMerav,\u201d he said, \u201cI can find no sign of disease. Nothing acute or life threatening. It\u2019s time you start to see yourself as a healthy girl again. You need to get back into a normal routine and life.\u201d<\/p>\n

That should have been the best news of the day. Yet I must have looked horrified. That was it? After everything she\u2019d been through, after all the poking and prodding, the drinking of foul fluids and being told there was nothing we could do but wait patiently for another round of tests while Merav writhed in pain, her knees held tight against her chest begging me nightly \u201cAbba, make the pain go away.\u201d That\u2019s the end of it \u2013 you\u2019re fine, now get on with your life?<\/p>\n

Perhaps sensing my confusion, Dr. N wisely chose…to avoid me completely. \u201cDo you think you can do that, think of yourself as healthy?\u201d he continued, looking straight at Merav.<\/p>\n

Merav shook her head. \u201cI don\u2019t know. It hurts too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

I finally found my voice. \u201cAre you saying\u2026\u201d I said to Dr. N, \u201cthat this has all be in Merav\u2019s head? That the whole illness was \u2013 no\u2026is \u2013 something psychosomatic?\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course that wasn\u2019t what he was saying at all. He proffered his best guess: Merav was suffering from something called \u201cIBS\u201d \u2013 short for \u201cirritable bowel syndrome.\u201d It\u2019s diagnosed primarily through process of elimination. There are no physical signs of disease in the body, but the symptoms are very real. Merav certainly didn\u2019t bring this on herself, Dr. N assured us. And it was probably totally unconnected to her illness the previous year.<\/p>\n

Then, perhaps to make me feel better, he prescribed a cocktail of anti-spasmodics, pain killers and paraffin oil.<\/p>\n

Now, Dr. N is not normally from the school of \u201ctough love\u201d medicine. So, as he nearly threw us out of his office, I wondered if maybe there was some method to this seeming madness.<\/p>\n

I decided to play along. Despite my frustration, I would try to see Merav as healthy again. I\u2019ve never been a big believer in the whole \u201cpower of positive thinking\u201d thing, but it was worth a try.<\/p>\n

No more doctors. No searching for the top pediatric rheumatologist in town. No pushing to schedule an appointment with the head of infectious diseases at the children\u2019s hospital in Ramat Gan. We\u2019d change our attitude. The seed had been planted. Time to let it grow, if only a little.<\/p>\n

And so the next morning, I said to Merav \u201cWould you like to come out to brunch with me and get some ice coffee?\u201d<\/p>\n

Merav was initially reluctant, citing the usual aches and pains, but the idea grew on her. And before long we were walking to the Caf\u00e9 Hillel on Emek Refaim Street where Merav ordered her favorite beverage, I got a chai masala with soy milk (my favorite beverage), and we shared a chocolate croissant.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I have milk in my coffee?\u201d she asked tentatively as we were ordering. What would normally have been a standard question had a meaning all of it own. For on top of everything else, during this period of illness we had taken Merav to a Chinese herbalist who put her on a highly restrictive diet that included no dairy products or white flour.<\/p>\n

The diet had inadvertently contributed to her predicament: with most foods making her nauseous, the only ones she actually wanted were forbidden. She had been subsisting on two pieces of toast and jam a day for weeks, hardly enough calories for a growing girl.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as I\u2019m concerned, I\u2019m pronouncing this diet null and void,\u201d I said. \u201cDidn\u2019t the doctor say you had to go back to your \u2018regular\u2019 life?\u201d<\/p>\n

Merav\u2019s mood began to brighten.<\/p>\n

As we were sipping our drinks and soaking in the buzz of a Friday morning in Jerusalem when the cafes are all packed and the streets flow like the proverbial milk and honey with friends and acquaintances from the neighborhood, my cell phone rang. It was our good friend Ruth who had taken a keen interest in Merav; the two had been close since her previous illness the year before.<\/p>\n

Could she have gotten attached to the concept of being ill?<\/div>\n

Ruth said she wanted to buy Merav a \u201csmall animal.\u201d She had been struck by a hunch that Merav might find it beneficial to take care of another living creature. I gave the phone over to Merav.<\/p>\n

Merav nearly jumped out of her seat. She launched into a stream of consciousness chatter that was downright invigorating. It had been a long time since so much energy had come out of our little girl\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

Ruth picked Merav up and they headed for the pet store where they lovingly held and evaluated all seven hamsters available before settling on a cute little critter that Merav named \u201cMazie\u201d after the imagined talking dog in the Judy Blume book \u201cJust As Long as We\u2019re Together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pet store put together a spacious cage at Ruth\u2019s request with a running wheel, various colorful crawling tubes and a little house. Merav held and watched and generally stayed transfixed on Mazie the rest of the day\u2026and the next day\u2026and pretty much the day after too.<\/p>\n

Her pain passed and she\u2019s been 100% better ever since.<\/p>\n

While they were out shopping, Ruth told us later that Merav had commented that she gets \u201cvery attached to things\u201d and that sometimes she finds it \u201chard to let go.\u201d Could she have gotten attached to the concept of being ill?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe that this was all in her head. Neither does Dr. N, I\u2019m sure. But what he understood \u2013 apparently before any of us \u2013 was that holding on to a concept of being \u201csick\u201d can impede a healthy recovery just as cruelly as a purely physical condition. His admonition to \u201cget back into life\u201d spurred all of us into action.<\/p>\n

Can one’s thoughts really affect health in such a profound and real way? In our case, there seems to be no doubt. I like to call it “the power of positive hamstering.”<\/p>\n

\n

Brian Blum is a journalist and entrepreneur based in Jerusalem. He writes the weekly column <\/i>This Normal Life (www.ThisNormalLife.com<\/a>). His latest startup <\/i>Bloggerce (www.bloggerce.com<\/a>) provides online publishing solutions for budding bloggers. Contact him at <\/i>brianblum@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was the seventh week of Merav\u2019s latest illness. Sharp and constant pains still pierced her abdomen. She felt dizzy and weak, no doubt in part a result of self-imposed starvation as the very thought of food in her current condition nauseated her. Her head pounded and her joints ached. As we headed to the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":49134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration","category-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Power of Positive Hamstering<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Can one's thoughts really affect health in such a profound and real way? In our case, there's no doubt. 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