By Guy Bennett B.Sc.

 This  is an actual case study following a newly born baby with an especially deadly form of leukaemia through a 1 year complementary kinesiology treatment program from February 2005 to January 2006.  It explains the different forms of leukemia and how they act, some strategies in working with the disease, how to work in with the medical system and support a very extreme treatment schedule, it looks at the emotional pressure on the family and how to support them to support the patient.   The article also illustrates the pressure on the kinesiologist and what they may be stepping into when they take on this type of role and how to make this resource more available to those who may need it without the kinesiologist burning out.  

On Australia day, I returned from visiting little Ava.  She was happy and playful, despite the fact her central line had just been removed and replaced.  The line site was infected and looked a bit messy, and her face was puffy from the cortisone, but not as puffy as I had seen it in the past.  Less than one year old, her body was covered in hair, but not as badly as some children after a bone marrow transplant.  Her mother, Nicola, was happy too.  After a grueling year of change and upheaval, a gentleness and type of normality was starting to settle around the family.  Blessings take many forms and come in strange ways. 

A year ago, at the end of February 2005, I received a call from Nicola.  Sounding emotional and desperate, she informed me that Ava, then only 3 weeks old, had been admitted

to the Royal Brisbane Hospital and diagnosed with leukaemia.  Ava’s body was covered with strawberry welts as her system started to break down from the disease.  While she should have been focusing on her baby and recovering from childbirth, Nicola was instead faced with the news that Ava was suffering from a very aggressive form of leukaemia.   

At Nicola’s request, I went to the hospital to give Ava a kinesiology balance.  When I arrived, Nicola and her mother were waiting for Ava to return from surgery in which she was having a lumbar puncture.  Chemotherapy drugs were being injected into her cerebrospinal fluid and samples were taken for analysis.  I balanced Nicola while we waited.    

Ava returned from surgery, groggy from the anesthetic.  As nurses buzzed around, I balanced her directly without the use of a surrogate.  Through kinesiology, Ava indicated that she didn’t want to be here ( in a body in this dimension), so most of the balance focused on helping her to release old patterns about being in a body.  After this initial balance these issues did not ever resurface. 

Shortly afterwards, Ava started to writhe and turn blue, indicating that she was going into respiratory arrest.  I watched helplessly as the nurses and doctors acted quickly to resuscitate her.  There was a feeling of life and death hanging in a moment.  As Ava clutched at life, I saw the expressions on the faces of her mother and grandmother.  I felt traumatized for about two weeks after this incident.  My ‘cushy’ kinesiology clinic seemed so far away from the drama of a children’s oncology ward. 

Subsequent muscle monitoring of Ava indicated that the lumbar puncture had disturbed her craniosacral respiration, which led to a disruption of her respiratory system.  We ensured that Ava received a kinesiology balance after each subsequent lumbar puncture.

Over the course of the year, I visited the hospital to perform balances on both Ava and Nicola.  It felt like we were walking in a minefield as the relentless rounds of intensely toxic chemotherapy drugs suppressed Ava’s immune system, ablating every white cell in her body again and again.  This process built up to a finale of near lethal doses of radiotherapy, in combination with chemotherapy, to destroy all of the stem cells in her bone marrow. 

During this year I received considerable support from one of my kinesiology students who is a medical specialist, and had previously been the head doctor at the very same Royal Children’s Hospital.  As he knew Ava’s oncologists, he offered to speak with them if at any time I had problems working within the medical system.  I didn’t ever experience any problems.

I was also assisted by another kinesiology student who is a medical scientist.  By chance, they were presented with the clinical profile of a baby for use as a training case study.  Although the patient was not identified, very few babies present with leukaemia at three weeks and were able to deduce this was baby Ava and incorporate this clinical data into Ava’s subsequent balances.

Leukaemia is defined as a malignant neoplasm of blood-forming tissues, characterized by abnormal proliferation of leucocytes (white blood cells) and is one of the four major types of cancer.  Leukaemia is divided into acute and chronic types and classified according to the cell lineage of origin - myeloid or lymphoid.  Acute leukaemias have a rapid onset and are aggressive and rapidly fatal if untreated.  Chronic leukaemias have a slower progression and are more difficult to cure than acute leukaemias.  Leukaemia is diagnosed by taking a bone marrow sample and investigating cell morphology, immunophenotyping and cytochemical stains.  Treatment varies depending on patient age, type of leukaemia and prognostic indicators, and may include a combination of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and bone marrow transplant.  When balancing a patient with leukaemia, questions which could be considered include type of leukaemia – acute/chronic, lymphoid/myeloid, chromosomal abnormality present/absent, time of onset, cause/trigger of onset. 

Acute lymphoid leukaemia (of which there are several sub-types) accounts for approximately one third of malignancies of childhood and current cure rates now approach 80%.  Indicators of poorer prognosis include an initial high white cell count and cytogenetic abnormalities of the leukaemic cell involved.

In Ava’s case, the leukaemia was due to a primitive cell form of lymphoid lineage which had an associated chromosomal abnormality on chromosome 11, both of which are poor prognostic indicators.  General medical theory suggests a strong mutagenic agent affected the mother and thus the stem cells in utero at approximately seven months.  However, kinesiology revealed that in Ava’s case, a major causative element was a cellular imbalance coming from the father’s side going back three generations.

The greater part of the kinesiology treatments were focused on surviving the chemotherapy drugs and supporting the immune system.  The chemotherapy drugs administered to Ava had the potential to kill her, independent of the leukaemia.  After chemotherapy, Ava’s neutrophils were markedly decreased, making her highly susceptible to bacterial infection. 

Kinesiology was used between chemotherapy rounds to re-establish Ava’s vitality before the next onslaught.  Nicola gave me the drug list for the coming round of chemotherapy and I would put each drug in circuit-retaining mode on Ava’s body and perform a kinesiology balance using the goal “While this drug has the desired effect there are no harmful side effects”.  Often as I was balancing Ava to the drugs I would feel ill and have strong chemical tastes in my own mouth.  During the balance I would use the goal “Ava remains free of all infection and disease” to support her highly compromised immune state.  At the end of most balances I would use the goal “Ava’s immune system resets itself into a healthy configuration”.  I applied the kinesiology cautiously, structuring it in a way that did not antagonise the medical process, which I was working supportively with rather than competing with.  

The doctors were quietly surprised by Ava’s resilience to the treatments and her ability to cope however after the fifth round of treatment, her poor little body was wiped out.  She was listless and slept constantly, with tests indicating her liver was very stressed.  Kinesiology was used to support her liver at this critical point.  

A key area in working with Ava was supporting her mother through the process.  I almost always balanced Nicola as well as Ava.  After Nicola was back on line (a term I use for describing a return to self from a state of distress) I would balance her to the goal “I supply Ava with what she needs in order to survive”.  Then, after another few weeks watching her baby within the hospital being poked and prodded and loaded up with steroids and chemotherapy drugs, Nicola would become run down again.  The doctors would say that Ava had perhaps a 20% chance of survival and that they were in uncharted territory dealing with such aggressive leukaemia in such a young body.  Nicola also feared that Ava would be emotionally damaged from the extensive intervention and that her constitution would be permanently affected by the residual side effects of the drugs. 

My response was that Nicola needed to take her mind out of the future contingencies and just focus on loving her baby in the moment.  Doing so would give little Ava a point of focus and a stable reference frame.  As Ava was fighting for her life and being medically interfered with, Nicola’s love would give her a guiding light to orientate her and thus diminish the negative effects.  Regardless of whether Ava lived or died, if Nicola simply loved her as much as she possibly could, there would be no regrets whatever the outcome.  As I explained and re-explained this idea to Nicola over a number of balances, she would calm, soften and become more present. 

After the first round of chemotherapy Ava was in remission, but based on the type of leukaemia, treatment required a combination of chemotherapy and radiation and then a bone marrow transplant.    

Two years prior, a long standing massage therapist client reappeared, informing me that her 30 year old sister had an acute form of leukaemia.  She required a bone marrow transplant and my client was the compatible donor.  I worked with both of them and focused on creating a good outcome for the bone marrow transplant.  I worked with an intention directed at the cells to harmonise them between each sister, while at the same time, clearing personal issues between them.  The result was that the donor produced more stem cells than the medical staff had ever witnessed (2 ½ times the average amount), the recipient stayed strong and healthy during and after the radiation and ended up leaving the hospital on world record time for this procedure.  She is still in remission today.

For Ava, her older brother, Heath, was the compatible bone marrow donor (siblings are the most compatible allogeneic donors).  I repeated a similar procedure as I had done previously with the two sisters.  Interestingly, Ava’s body was not happy about receiving male cells and I was able to balance this stress.  The result was the same as the sisters’ case, with Heath producing three times the required amount of stem cells.  Ava coped beautifully even though she looked like a lobster after the treatment and I could feel the intense stress her body was under. 

During Ava’s balance after the bone marrow transplant engraftment, the thymus and adrenal glands kept coming up.  Nicola relayed that the doctors had said that these glands are the parts of the body most likely to fail after radiation.  Ava will still need regular kinesiology balances  for some time to rebalance the effects of the radiation, fine tune the cells from her brother and to support in the detoxification process from the treatments.

Quite clearly the aggressive leukaemia would have taken Ava’s life had it not been for the quick medical intervention.  However, by its own means, the medical road has created incredible stress on Ava’s little body.  In many cases it is the medical treatments that are the cause of death.  Kinesiology has clearly supported the process in as simple a way as improving Nicola’s state of mind.  It would seem, although not scientifically verifiable at this stage, that the kinesiology has also helped Ava to cope with and recover from the medical treatment, and optimised the results of the various procedures, such as the bone marrow transplant.  I expect it can continue to help her body to adjust and recover from the future effects of her treatment.

The reality of this type of complimentary treatment is that it is high dependence and the expense of the treatment is borne by the parents directly.  It is also very demanding on the practitioner and it is likely that most kinesiologists could not afford, emotionally or financially, to see more that one of this type of client at a time.  With the increase in this type of disease there needs to be a system or way of organising capable kinesiologists to access the people who both want and need this type of help.  Clearly there needs to be cooperation of the medical and kinesiology worlds in harmony, where each understands their strengths and weaknesses, so that they can compliment each other to create the best outcome for the clients.