BOOK COVER ILLUSTRATION: DAVID GROTRIANAn integrative path
16
february/march 2019yogajournal.com.auPRACTICE WELL
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When a physician found himself in the patient’s chair—diagnosed with
cancer in his neck—he didn’t go straight into conventional treatments.
Instead, he travelled to India to see an Ayurvedic therapist. He shares
his challenging journey and how he used a combination of Eastern and
Western medicine to heal.
WEARING ONLY A MUSLIN, I lie on a
hardwood table stained the colour of
mahogany from years of oil massages. A
warm breeze flutters a sun-bleached
crimson sari mounted lengthwise on the
wire-screen wall that separates the
treatment room from the garden and
coconut palms outside. Krishna Dasan,
the Ayurvedic therapist working on me,
glides an oily satchel filled with freshly
cut leaves, garlic, and lemon in long
strokes from my chest to my legs.
Sometimes along the way, detecting a
stubborn area of muscular tightness, he
stops and rubs back and forth over the
stuck area for a number of staccato
strokes before resuming longer ones.
When the bag cools, Krishna hands
it to his assistant, Shashi, who puts it
back in turmeric-infused oil bubbling on
a single-burner gas flame and hands
Krishna a hot one. After pounding the
satchel once or twice on the table to cool
it and remove excess oil, Krishna traces
firm circles on either side of my chest.
The air is fragrant with a smell more
like food than medicine, vaguely
reminiscent of homemade pea soup.
Because he is worried that the hot oil
might cause the metastatic cancer cells
in the lymph nodes of my neck to
spread, Krishna massages that area only
lightly. A few days before we’d begun
these treatments, his guru, Chandukutty
Vaidyar, an elderly Ayurvedic physician,
had warned him to be careful.
Normally, Vaidyar, whose name is
the Malayalam word for “doctor,”
refuses to treat cancer patients, but
since I have been his student for years,
he’s made an exception.
“I’m not expecting Ayurveda to cure
my cancer,” I tell Krishna. He seems
relieved. “I just want to get as rested and
balanced as I can be be-fore I undergo
the heavy-duty treatments.”By Timothy McCall, MD