Longtime local resident and massage therapist Phyllis Braun received a life-changing diagnosis last month — but said she continues to trust in the power of the body to heal itself. A GoFundMe in support of Braun, as she undergoes treatment, has been established. (Photo by Lauren "Chuck" Shows)
Fundraiser aids local resident
- Published: October 24, 2024
For longtime local massage therapist Phyllis Braun, loving and trusting in the power of the human body to heal itself has been a strong foundation upon which she’s built her life’s work.
Now, after a life-changing cancer diagnosis, 74-year-old Braun told the News that she continues to love and trust in the healing process, even as she steps into the unknown.
A GoFundMe fundraising website page has been established by Braun’s loved ones in order to support her as she undergoes treatment.
Six weeks ago, Braun said, she felt sick and went to the emergency room hoping to address the issue. She left the ER with a diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL — a blood cancer that produces too many white blood cells.
“It turned my world upside down,” Braun said.
Braun is now enrolled in a clinical trial at the James Comprehensive Cancer Center at The Ohio State University, where doctors are treating her ALL via immunotherapy.
At its core, immunotherapy — an emerging therapy that The James’ website refers to as “the next frontier of cancer treatment” — helps boost the immune system’s ability to fight leukemia and weakens cancer cells, making them more vulnerable to that fight.
“Immunotherapy is cutting-edge — it’s kind of the way medicine is going,” Braun said.
A licensed massage therapist who has practiced for 42 years — about 30 of those in Yellow Springs — Braun said she’s had to put a stop to her work while she undergoes treatment and is immunocompromised. That reality, she said, means she’ll likely have to move away from the home she currently rents on the south end of town, where she’s lived for 12 years.
“I’m in a position I’ve never been in financially where I can’t work,” she said. “My work is one of the things I dearly love, and now that’s taken away.”
But Braun said neighbors, friends and loved ones — including her two sons — have stepped up to help as she begins treatment; she’s currently undergoing the first of four phases of treatment, and is connected intravenously to a wearable medical bag that pumps medicine into her body continuously. She travels to the James every other day to have the medicine “topped up,” she said.
Because she can’t drive while receiving treatment, volunteers make sure she’s able to get to and from Columbus. Folks have also brought her meals and gone on grocery runs.
“I’ve never been so grateful for this community,” Braun said.
She added that some who have learned about her diagnosis through word-of-mouth have asked how they can help support her financially, prompting the creation of the GoFundMe campaign.
“All my life I’ve been very independent, so it can be difficult to ask for help, but people have been reaching out to ask, ‘What can I do?’” she said.
But not everyone in her circles, either personal or professional, is aware of Braun’s diagnosis, recent as it is. She said she hopes that the GoFundMe, and this article, will help spread the word.
“I know there are people in this community who know me who don’t even know this is going on,” she said. “So it’s not about money, but getting the word out.”
Those personal and professional circles extend out from Braun’s work as a massage therapist — work that she said has long informed her relationship with her own body and the human body in general. She pointed out that, though her clients have often lauded her work as itself being a kind of healing, she believes that she’s only a facilitator, and that it’s the body itself that does the work.
“As a massage therapist, my work has been to facilitate people’s bodies in a loving way,” she said. “Their bodies have the intelligence to heal themselves.”
She identified love and trust as the elements that fuel her work — love of the body and the people who inhabit bodies, and trust in the power of touch, which she said is “immeasurable,” to help healing bloom.
With regard to her own healing, Braun said she’s tolerating the immunotherapy treatment well so far, with no major side effects — though she said it’s clear to her that she’s sick, as both her fatigue and a “pharmacy of drugs” beside her on a TV tray in her living room remind her daily.
Even so, Braun said that her diagnosis hasn’t fundamentally altered how she views bodies and the ways they heal.
“My feeling that the body is miraculous in its ability to heal has not changed,” she said. “Even though I’m in the throes of this, I’m watching parts of things in my body that are doing better. … My platelets are up; they’re not where they could be, but they’re better than they’ve ever been. And [the doctors at The James] were very excited about that yesterday.”
Braun pointed out that our bodies are always changing at a cellular level — cells divide, grow and diminish, minute by minute.
“Things are constantly changing in our bodies — we’re different all the time,” she said.
That’s especially true for those living with cancer, for whom unchecked cell generation is a starting point for the disease. And because immunotherapy works directly to identify and eliminate cancer cells, it can be part of that ever-changing process, too.
“So I look at this as an opportunity — not that it’s not hard — to learn and grow, for gratitude, and helping others learn more through this [immunotherapy] study,” Braun said.
She added that, as far as she’s concerned, her prognosis is that she will be well again — and as that happens, she hopes to go back to work. When that will be possible is just one of many unknowns that Braun acknowledged will be part of her healing process — one she chooses to approach with a spirit of inquiry.
“People say, ‘Oh my God, aren’t you scared?’” she said. “But I’m not scared. I’m curious — the unknown has some love in it, too.”
To donate to the GoFundMe fundraiser for Braun, go to http://www.gofund.me/9782cf1e.
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