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Concord
Monitor
April
10, 2008 - 7:20 am
By
SARAH M. EARLE
Monitor staff
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Reflecting
In
his fight with Lou Gehrig's disease, Mark Chamberlin has
gained an artist's eye
Chamberlin, who has Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, has been
taking photos of
New Hampshire
’s outdoors for years.
A selection of his work is now on display at the Merrimack
County Nursing Home in Boscawen, where he is in hospice care.
As
Mark Chamberlin slowly lost the ability to walk, he gained
something unexpected. The photos he'd been taking since he
hiked the
Appalachian Trail
30 years earlier began to evolve - to grow more focused, more
intimate, somehow more real.
"When
he was walking, he was doing more landscape photos, the stuff
you'd see on postcards," said Chamberlin's brother, Sam,
sitting by Mark's bedside at the Merrimack County Nursing Home
in Boscawen. "His photos have gotten exponentially better
since he had to slow down. . . . The more recent ones just
seem to jump out at you. They're more art."
That
art has followed Chamberlin, 51, to the nursing home where,
after a long battle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS),
he's been placed in hospice care. His girlfriend, Debra Rattee,
and his brother have put up a small display of his favorite
photos in the lobby. Some show the brilliant colors of
New Hampshire
's countryside cropped in unexpected ways, while others
contemplate and elevate the mundane. Many show a gorgeous
scene in reverse, reflected in a pond or swirled and distorted
by a moving stream.
"That's
one of his favorites," said Rattee, pointing to a shot of
brown leaves and pine needles floating on the surface of some
unknown pond or puddle. "And I thought, 'I didn't know
dead leaves could look so good.' . . . I love his photos. I
would never have noticed some of the things he takes pictures
of."
Before
being diagnosed with ALS in 2001, Chamberlin might not have
noticed such things either. He loved the outdoors, but he was
always on the go - hiking, hunting, mining, gardening. Born
and raised in
Salisbury
, he served in the Marines and on the Salisbury Fire
Department, as well as working in real estate.
As
the disease began to rob Chamberlin of muscle function, he
turned more and more to photography, driving to his favorite
places and taking pictures through his car window with a zoom
lens. Thanks to a car equipped with hand controls, he was able
to keep driving until about five months ago. During that time,
he also co-authored a book on the rangeways of New Hampshire
(those old roads that often provoke heated discussions at town
meetings) and worked with an energy healer to put together a
book of photos and poems.
"How
has the photography helped you?" Rattee asked Chamberlin,
who lay watching the Red Sox on a television set flanked by
two large framed prints - one of a stone wall in the snow, the
other of a wagon on a hill. Chamberlin, who can no longer talk
but whose brain functions as well as ever, slowly raised one
hand and made a short, downward sweep.
"Calmed
you down?" asked Sam Chamberlin.
Chamberlin
nodded, then asked for a pen to write on a notebook he held on
his lap. With slow, childlike strokes he wrote one word:
"Perspective."
(His
prints are for sale on his website, markchamberlinphotos.com.)
Obituary
MARK CHAMBERLIN, whose
photographs were featured on yesterday's Arts &
Entertainment page, died Wednesday night, ending a seven-year
battle with Lou Gehrig's disease. The 51-year-old
Salisbury
native, who served in the Marines and as an EMT for the
Salisbury
Fire Department, had been placed in hospice care at the
Merrimack
County
Nursing Home last week. His girlfriend, Debra Rattee, said he
wrote her a note Wednesday, the day after being interviewed by
the Monitor, telling her it was time to go. She believes he
may have been waiting to tell his story before he passed away.
SARAH EARLE
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jump
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research
studies and articles
The
Tong Ren Healing Method: A Survey Study
Amy M. Sullivan, EdD;
Susan Bauer-Wu, PhD, RN, and Michael Miovic,
MD
Introduction
The National Institutes of Health National Center for Complementary and
Alternative Medicine (NIH NCCAM) has described energy
medicine as a domain in complementary and alternative
medicine (CAM) in need of scientific research (National Institutes of Health
[NIH], 2007). Tong Ren (TR) Healing is a relatively new modality of energy
medicine developed in 2001 by Tom Tam, a practitioner of
acupuncture and other forms of Traditional Chinese
Medicine.
Results:
Response rate 89% (n ¼ 265). Cancer (30.6%), endocrine/autoimmune (17.5%) and
musculoskeletal disorders (17.2%) were the most commonly reported conditions.
Among respondents who had attended more than one session (n ¼ 216), 30% used
superlatives (e.g., ‘‘amazing’’) to describe TR’s impact, and
one-third noted improved quality of life.
Anxiety,
depression, cancer, and autoimmune disorders appeared to have the greatest
treatment responses, with 63.8%, 61.0%, 60.3%, and 58.1% of participants with
these conditions reporting substantial improvements.
Conclusion:
This first study documenting self-reported effects of TR shows subjective
benefits and no adverse effects. Further research on this approach is warranted.
Please
click here
to view the entire study in PDF format, license courtesy of the OCI Healing and
Research Foundation at http://www.ocihealingresearchfoundation.org/
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A
Study on Conference Calls as a Method of Delivering Tong Ren Therapy
Millie
Pepple MSN, APRN, BC
Abstract (For the full report on this study, please click here)
Objective-
Tong Ren therapy may be used in a variety of settings, including individual
treatments in a clinic, telephone sessions, guinea pig classes (in-person group
sessions), live broadcast guinea pig classes (http://www.tongrenstation.com),
and conference calls. This study examines the effectiveness of Tong Ren
conference calls.
The project looks at the variety of health conditions treated during
conference calls and the immediate and long-term results.
Implementation plan-
Data for this study was obtained from conference calls occurring on
Tuesday and Thursday evenings during the first 5 months of 2008. Information
obtained from each caller included their first name, the diagnosis, the chief
complaint, and the sensation noted during the treatment. Some callers also
shared their pain level on a 0-10 scale and the results of scans or ultrasounds.
Initial and follow-up information was obtained on 500 call instances; with many
callers phoning into the conference call multiple times. There were 126
different callers involved in this study. Callers accessing the conference call
were from most states throughout the United States, including Hawaii, and Canada
and France.
Results-
Forty-five percent of the callers have been medically diagnosed with cancer with
25 different primary cancer sites. The remaining callers had various other
diagnosis including cardiac, pulmonary, endocrine, inflammatory,
gastrointestinal, genitourinary, dermatologic and neurologic disorders.
Of the 500 total calls, 98% of the callers voiced positive effects such as
relaxation, warmth, and pain-relief. Of the 10 callers who did not experience
positive effects, four were first time callers that called in to future
conference calls and on each subsequent call noted positive effects.
Some callers noted relief of symptoms while another caller was being
treated. Pre and post pain levels were obtained on 10.5% of the callers. Using
the mean pre-pain level and mean post-pain level it was found that pain was
reduced by 64.6% following treatments. Fifteen callers shared the positive
results of scans and ultrasounds performed while receiving Tong Ren therapy.
The monitored conference calls were led by four different therapists. The
percentage of callers that voiced positive effects varied between 97.6% and 100%
in each of the four therapists. This may lead to the inference that the positive
responses were related to the Tong Ren treatments rather than a specific
therapist. This is one area where further study may be warranted.
Of the 126 different callers, 81 called in more than one time with 15
callers accessing the conference call a minimum of 10 times. The number of
repeat callers would suggest that the callers believe that the conference calls
play a significant role in their healing.
This study may be useful in the promotion of Tong Ren conference calls for
persons seeking healing who are unable to attend guinea pig classes or
individual healing sessions. The treatments may be used concomitantly with
Western medicine cancer treatments. The study indicates that many people receive
some perceived benefit, especially with pain relief and relaxation, as indicated
by self-reported ratings and repeat calls. Although further study may be
warranted, this study suggests the effectiveness of Tong Ren therapy as a long
distance healing modality.
The conference calls monitored for this study included:
Tong Ren Individual Therapy Conference Calls:
Tuesday---7:00pm-8:00pm(EST)
Rick Kuethe with Carol Kershaw
Thursday-8:30-9:30pm(EST)-Cancer and ALS patients only
9:30-10:30pm(EST) open call
Craig and Janet Holmes
The conference calls may be accessed through telephone number: (712)432-3900.
The conference ID is 7501379#
A listing of other available conference calls may be found immediately here,
or at: http://www.tomtam.com/content/tong-ren-conference-call
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217-566-2645. 
