Chaplains offer cancer patients spiritual healing
By Daily Bruin Staff
Oct. 11, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Photos by COURTNEY STEWART/ Daily Bruin (Top) Chaplain
James Putney comforts Leila
Jarvheden who is being treated for cancer. (Bottom) Putney
and Jarvheden pray together.
By Matt Goulding
Daily Bruin Reporter
Deep within the bowels of the UCLA Medical Center, beyond the
doctors and nurses, past the IVs and respirators, there is a force
fighting illness that transcends medicine and technology.
Spiritual care, delivered in daily doses by dedicated chaplains,
is a lifeline for hundreds of patients.
“It’s as strong as the medicine,” said Leila
Jarvheden, a patient at the Medical Center who has been receiving
spiritual care for the last year and a half. “There is no
doubt about it.”
When a seemingly successful battle with breast cancer failed in
1999, Jarvheden returned to UCLA dejected, in search of a way to
combat her disease and her disappointment.
Her answers came in the form of spiritual morphine, administered
by Christian chaplain Rev. James Putney.
“The days when I wanted to die, when I had no hope for
life, he came to talk and pray with me,” she said. “He
is an angel.”
 This celestial helper has served as a chaplain in
UCLA’s Oncology Center since 1998. Now in charge of spiritual
care for outpatients, his efforts the last two years show a
man’s courage and heart cannot be measured in feet and
inches.
As a child, Putney was diagnosed with Morquio’s syndrome,
a form of dwarfism. As a result, his 4-foot frame endures the
intense pain of chronic arthritis. Putney said his disability
bridges the gap between himself and his patients, making it easier
for them to relate.
“It’s not every day that you see someone 4-feet tall
walk into your life,” Putney said. “They see that I can
relate to a life being turned upside down by a physical
problem.”
Putney is one of three staff chaplains and four resident
chaplains in training with the spiritual care department. The
department, founded by the Medical Center in 1986, has chaplains
servicing the major sections of UCLA’s Westwood hospitals,
including the Santa Monica branch.
Rev. Sandy Yarlott took over as the department’s director
in 2000 and has worked on providing personal spiritual care in a
technological, impersonal environment.
“In a fast-paced environment like this, no one is paying
attention to the whole person,” Yarlott said.
“You’re just the guy with liver disease or the woman
with the leg amputation. This hospitalization raises questions and
people want to know, “˜Will I still be loved if I walk out of
here with one leg instead of two?'”
Yarlott said she focuses on providing a diverse staff of
chaplains and volunteers to help patients answer such questions. A
rabbi, Roman Catholic priest and Buddhist monk are among those that
assist devotees and atheists alike.
“Ninety-nine percent of the patients are open to a visit
from a chaplain whether they have a faith tradition or no religion
at all,” she said.
While the spiritual care department was founded to assist
patients and their families, it has since expanded its reaches to
comfort staff members as well.
Tea for the Soul, held weekly by each chaplain in their section
of the hospital, provides a time for doctors and nurses to escape
the hardships of chaotic operating, crowded emergency and nervous
waiting rooms. Herbal teas and Diddy Riese cookies accompany mellow
music and welcoming chaplains to create an atmosphere the medical
staff can embrace.
Providing this sort of haven, Yarlott said, is why she became a
chaplain. For her, the transition from congregational work to
hospital ministry 12 years ago wasn’t simply a call, it was
an order.
“I had been sitting for an hour of silence and meditation
when I heard a voice that said “˜Now you’re ready to
work with sick and dying people,'” she said.
For others, like Putney, the message is more subtle.
“It wasn’t a burning bush or an audible
voice,” he said, “but it was a calling.”
No matter how one knows it’s time to work with the sick,
it is a decision that demands strength and tenacity. The profession
is one which may require consoling a couple who just lost their
newborn baby or helping a family cope with the grueling battle and
death of their cancer-ridden father.
“More than once, I’ve led the discussion with the
family in the decision-making process of removing life
support,” Putney said. “You’re there for the
patient, you’re there for the family.”
With one of the top oncology centers in the country, patients
often come to UCLA under dire circumstances. When losing a close
patient, Putney said he holds a ceremony with flowers, often
writing poetry to cope with the loss.
Now, with Jarvheden’s cancer moving into stage 4, a
serious state in which the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes,
Putney provides the support she needs to combat the overwhelming
disappointment that accompanied the reemergence of breast
cancer.
Doctors say there is no cure, but Jarvheden doesn’t
believe them.
Together, Putney and Jarvheden have mounted a successful attack
on the emotional and psychological problems that accompany the
physical repercussions of cancer.
They pray together, and although Jarvheden is Muslim, she and
Putney speak openly ““ free of religious doctrines ““ to
the same God.
“It’s not about religion. Whatever you name God,
it’s the same in any language. It gives me hope and
strength,” she said.
Besides prayer and open discourse, Jarvheden said that guided
visualization has been fundamental in maintaining hope through the
intensity of chemotherapy and other treatment.
Putney sets the scene: a lush garden, overflowing with natural
vegetation, dissected by a quaint stream, and at the base of the
water, on a stone bench, sits Jarvheden.
“It works. The body follows the mind,” she said.
“You feel the warmth of the sun, you sit on those stones and
dip your toe in the water.”
For younger patients, Putney verbalizes the image of Pac-Man
eating away at little pellets and colored ghosts like so many
cancer cells.
Regardless of the outcome of her fight against cancer, Jarvheden
said she has her life back, and she will live every day as fully as
she can.
“When people are healthy and strong, the whole world looks
beautiful,” she said. “When it gets to the point you
take so many painkillers and that pain is still there, it
isn’t so beautiful. James (Putney) keeps that vision
beautiful.”
