CancerChoices Senior Clinical Consultant Laura Pole: I was conducting an Ayurvedic cooking workshop over a long weekend at a yogic retreat center. One of the participants was Anton, a 62-year-old gentleman from New York City. He had just finished treatment for prostate cancer and came to the workshop to learn about how to take better care of himself with food. Anton explained that he was a Cuban exile who fled to NYC in the ‘60s and had lived there ever since.
The morning after he arrived, our retreat center liaison came and told me Anton had not shown up for morning yoga and meditation (an expectation of all center visitors) and that she was going to have to talk to him about this. Anton explained he realized after sleeping so well the night before, that he had not had a full night’s sleep since moving to New York. The street noise was constantly disrupting his sleep to the point where this became his new normal. Anton asserted his needs with the center liaison and said he would continue to sleep in and would go to evening yoga and meditation. He ended up staying an extra week to rejuvenate his body, mind, and spirit in the peace and quiet of the beautiful mountain retreat. He also left with a simple plan to block out the noise from the streets and let in the healing of sleep.
Image from Ruth Hennig
Laura Pole is senior clinical consultant for CancerChoices. Laura is an oncology clinical nurse specialist who has been providing integrative oncology clinical care, navigation, consultation, and education services for over 40 years. She is the co-creator and co-coordinator of the Integrative Oncology Navigation Training at Smith Center for Healing and the Arts in Washington, DC. Laura also manages the “Media Watch Cancer News That You Can Use” listserv for Smith Center/Commonweal. In her role as a palliative care educator and consultant, Laura has served as statewide Respecting Choices Faculty for the Virginia POST (Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment) Collaborative as well as provided statewide professional education on palliative and end-of-life care for the Virginia Association for Hospices and Palliative Care.
For CancerChoices, Laura curates content and research, networks with clinical and organizational partners, brings awareness and education of integrative oncology at professional and patient conferences and programs, and translates research into information relevant to the patient experience as well as clinical practice.
Laura sees her work with CancerChoices as a perfect alignment of all her passions, knowledge and skills in integrative oncology care. She is honored to serve you.
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