 "Photo: Courtesy of Grant Hospital")
Last December, Dean Steaton found out he had testicular cancer. His doctor quickly rushed him into surgery to remove the offending tumors, but the pain didn't stop there.
Less than a month after surgery, Steaton began six weeks of grueling radiation treatments that left him weak and in pain. Steaton was lucky though. Not only did he overcome cancer, he was able to receive his radiation treatments through an outpatient service. Many cancer patients are left so weak that they must remain hospitalized for the duration of their treatment.
Inpatient or outpatient, cancer treatment is not pleasant for anyone. Local hospitals Grant and Riverside have implemented a simple therapy program to help their patients forget about the pain.
"I had to go to the Riverside oncology department a couple times a week for treatment," Steaton said. "Waiting to go in would be monotonous and seemed to last forever. That is unless Colleen came around to take my mind off the situation."
Colleen Caruso is Grant and Riverside's art advocate, handling the day-to-day patient interactions of the hospitals' art therapy programs. With her cart full of pens, pencils, watercolors and acrylics, she works to ease the pain of cancer victims by leading them into a period of creativity.
"Some patients are in way too much pain, so I'll draw for them while they talk about a favorite memory or pet," Caruso said. "Others paint or draw something of their choosing or something I drew in which they can fill in."
The hospitals are both owned by Ohio Health, and their art therapy programs are small - limited mainly to their oncology units, but they are not alone.
Since the development of art therapy in the 1970s, it has found its way into hospitals and treatment programs throughout the world, spawning collegiate degree programs along the way.
"The arts were originally used with health care prior to the industrial age, especially in Japan," said Gay Hanna, executive director of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare. "The industrial age kind of pushed art treatment out, but it's on the way back in."
The Society is a non-profit organization for art therapy. The group, based in Washington, D.C., is an umbrella organization representing art therapists throughout the world by providing funding, job placement and training. The Society, in turn, acquires funds for disbursement through federal grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as from members and corporate sponsors.
"We love our diversity of funding. We aim to serve patients and our constituents. We're designated by the NEA as the leader in art therapy, which helps further our mission to integrate arts into health care and care for the whole person," Hanna said.
The Ohio Health programs, conversely, acquire meager funds in a very different manner.
"Our program receives money mostly through charitable contributions," said Jennifer Quinn, art therapist coordinator. "My salary comes from the hospital, but art supplies and other things are received from companies, charities, individuals who hear about the program or former patients who want to help out."
Quinn oversees all of Grant and Riverside's healing arts programs, which also includes massage, music and therapy through the use of animals. Like Hanna, Quinn sees treatment along the lines of treating the whole person.
"A lot of it is about building a relationship, a rapport with the patient, taking them away from the hospital and their pain through conversation and creation," Quinn said.
Steaton was so touched by the therapy he received at Riverside that he began his own charitable quest in the name of Ohio Health's art therapy through his business, the Handpoured Candle Company.
"It's a great service they offer. To go and mess around with watercolors was something I hadn't done as a kid and helped me cope with my cancer experience," Steaton said. "I wanted to help them out for helping me out, so in the past year I've done two different candle sales, raising more than $1000 for them."
Something one may notice upon entering Grant Hospital's ninth floor cancer treatment center are the ceilings. The normally cream-colored tiles form acrylic mosaics that snake their way through each corridor; each tile representing a patient's hospital time spent and the creative light that resulted from it.
"A group of Teays Valley Elementary students actually started the program to encourage cancer patients," Caruso said. "It was a huge success and the kids were so touched by the response. Some were even in tears by the thanks they received, and it really did spark a lot of interest among patients in creating their own tiles."
Now, the hallway ceilings are nearly covered in the unique tiles.
And though the art therapy program isn't nearly what Quinn and Caruso dream of, both said they would like to see it available to all patients. They concede that they're happy with how far it's come in so little time.
"When I first started there were something like two art therapy volunteers," Caruso said. "Now I have 11, and I'm having to put people on a waiting list because all of the slots I have open to treat patients are filled."
The growing program soon may lead to expanding its coverage to hospital employees through the program "Caring for the Caregiver." As time passes and agencies become more open to holistic medicine, Grant and Riverside will continue to push the bounds of soothing treatment that requires an open mind, not a pill.
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