‘To be able to feel as if I can actually leave my body while the nurse changes my dressing is nothing short of a miracle,’ said Doris, 38, who had terminal breast cancer.
She already had major surgery some years previously and, by the time she was first seen, she was suffering from a terminal cancer of one of her breasts. This particular tumour was painfully ulcerating through the skin, and required daily dressings which was extremely painful and unpleasant and the constant nursing and pain it caused resulted in her being readmitted to hospital. All she wanted for the remaining days of her life was to be with her family, and to be as alert as possible. She wanted to be able to contribute in any way to the care of her husband and young children.
As is often the case with cancer sufferers, she proved to be an extremely good hypnotic subject and, within one or two sessions of hypnosis, she was able to put herself into a deep trance whenever she wished.
In hypnosis, she was taught how to use the techniques of ‘glove anaesthesia’ in which she could visualise her hand becoming cold, numb and dull.
She could also by using hypnotically-based imagery, fantasize herself leaving her body and going into the room next door whenever the district nurse came to change her dressing — or whenever she felt too bad to cope with her current existence.
By using these techniques, she was able to stay at home until three days before her death when she lapsed into a coma. Her consumption of narcotic analgesia had decreased to almost nothing, and her consumption of anti-depressants and tranquillisers guaranteed that she remained calm, relaxed, and able
to use the self-help imagery techniques. She never came out of the coma and died peacefully in hospital. Later, her husband expressed appreciation that the family had been able to share the last few days with their mother and wife.
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