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I send this “Thanksgiving narrative” to the Friends of the Foundation for TLC Touch who have made it possible the beginning of our Pilot Project.
My First Visit to the Family House on November 13, 2008
Founded in 1981, Family House is a not-for-profit organization providing temporary housing to families of seriously ill children receiving treatment at the University of California San Francisco Children's Hospital. The kids are receiving radiation or chemotherapy for various forms of cancer, having tumors removed, getting organ transplants, or participating in research treatments for life limiting diseases.
Note: Names have been changed to respect privacy.
As I enter the Koret Family House, a four story apartment-like house tucked into a crowded urban street near Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, I feel nervous, excited and hopeful to bring my massage/touch skills and possibly offer some relief to the families who are there to support their children with cancer. I have brought a suitcase on rollers full of handouts on massage, acupressure and reflexology points for various conditions and ailments. I am wide eyed wondering who I will meet. The staff welcomes me, ushering me inside. The Family House has one house with thirty rooms and another house with ten rooms directly across from the hospital. Together their capacity is to house about 104 people a day and they have been full 97% of the time for the past 26 years. 

First, I met Christine. Her young daughter, Mia, about 4-years-old, is scheduled to receive radiation five days a week for next four months. I find out later that Mia has eye cancer. When I first ask John, her Dad, about her diagnosis he answers is a cryptic four words, and I have to ask what the long words mean.
Teresa, the volunteer coordinator for the house, reports posting the flyer announcing my arrival today to teach Tender Loving Care (TLC) Touch; massage and touch skills for caretakers of children with cancer and other life-limiting illnesses. This is my passion. Even after two decades of teaching massage, I am excited and humbled to be here to work with these families. The house is it like a little hotel, yet it has the feel of a home that is well used and well lived in. I set up my teaching area on the fourth floor living room, next to the kitchen. The space feels good until the unexpected rug cleaners come in to clean the hallways and living room…quite noisy and a little overpowering with cleaning smells.
Teresa leads me to the laundry room with a row of washing machines and dryers. We meet Christine, John and their daughter Mia. We start talking about healing touch while she barely slows down multi-tasking and doing her laundry at the same time. She loves the names of the acupressure points like Sea of Vitality and Hidden Clarity. Initially, we focus on her needs first. She reports she has headache problems. I gently test the waters and ask her permission if she is approachable for me to touch a tight spot on her shoulder. Her husband John looks on with curiosity. I offer some hand-outs as we talk. John keeps watching me out of the corner of his eye. Christine pulls him into the conversation. Finally, I have am able to make contact with him. Their daughter, Mia, is playing nearby, pushing her baby doll in a baby stroller. Mia is the youngest of 3 children. The other two older siblings live at home in Sacramento. Mia is totally bald and her left eye is dropping and half closed. She wears a 16” pointed pink princess headdress, with a clear netted stocking cap covering her otherwise bald head. Radiation kills all your fast growing cells, hair being one of them. Seems like a normal family, but this afternoon they will be taking Mia to get her daily radiation treatment at UCSF Children's Hospital. 

I can not imagine what it is like to have a 4-year-old having to go through radiation treatments five days a week for four months. My kids, I should say adults are grown now, just had the usual measles, colds and ear aches which all passed quickly.  I want to inquire but I know it’s inappropriate for a stranger to ask, do the radiation treatments hurt her...does it make her feel sick afterwards? I wonder what her prognosis is. Bottom line…what is her chances of survival? I hope I see them again at my next visit. I want to learn how to best support Christine not only to give Mia touch but to also do SELF-massage/touch. Maybe Christine and John will be open to learning how to give touch to each other. I have learned never to make pre- judgments like…he doesn’t look like a “touchy feely” type of guy”. I can tell he loves his wife dearly. He, not Christine, asks me how I can help his wife with her sciatic problem. He asks nothing for himself. I will have to work on that another time.

I wait in the kitchen. I organize the hand-outs I’ve brought with me, outlining various massage techniques and acupressure and reflexology points for acute pain, nausea, depression, various organs and immune stimulation, etc.

Suddenly, Mary is there, with my flyer in her hand. Shyly and hesitantly, she enters the kitchen and asks if I am Samuel. She looks dazed; beyond stressed, almost in mild shock. I ask her, in a gentle voice, how she is and I offer her a seat. Immediately, she starts to sob, with big tears streaming down her checks. The reality of her sadness in her sobs is so raw I almost starting crying myself. Instinctively, I want to reach out and hold her hand, but I sense she is not open to that. She tells me how her 5-year-old son Paul had a heart transplant a week ago. He then suffered a seizure three days later and is not stable yet. She asks about acupressure points to help the heart. Fortunately I have in my A-Z alphabetized file of acupressure points something for the heart. 
I check in with her more deeply. She starts crying again and shares, "Paul won't smile anymore, no matter what I do." I teach her some points for depression. While showing her the points for her child, I ask to demonstrate them on her hand. Here is my chance to "give her" some TLC Touch. I center myself doing continuous breath and I imagine sending energy from my heart through my arms and hands to her hand. As my mind shares the technical information, I search my mind for optimistic things to share. After being calm for a couple of minutes, Mary looks at her watch and suddenly pulls back her hand, stands up and announces she must leave immediately to relieve her husband Dave at the hospital who is with their son. I want to keep giving her touch and comforting her, but she is on task now and I see her body starts to become somewhat rigid but she is more peaceful than when she first came in. I find out later her son was born with a heart defect. The plan all along, was to wait until he was older to get the heart transplant, if one was “available”. Later I hear his chances of survival are good. I hope I can meet Mary’s husband Dave on my next visit, to teach him some TLC Touch for his son, himself, and to share with his wife.

My next students are volunteers—the leader, a woman in her 30s with shoulders as tight as hard wood. I perform points on her upper back and shoulders and teach her a stretch to relax her shoulders. She is open and thankful. Next are her crew of three middle aged developmentally delayed men who help perform odd jobs for the Family House. They have been coming weekly for a year how. I listen to each man’s slurred speech and am able to directly give them TLC Touch, and teach them pressure points they can do on themselves. Michael reports tight shoulders; Joe can't fall sleep and then there is Mark, the relaxed one who is always smiling happily and talks very little. 

In the hall, I run into two Hispanic women; one with her daughter in a stroller who looks very, very tired. I invite them to come to learn some TLC Touch and they show up in the kitchen area ten minutes later. Maria is bilingual but Quanah speaks Spanish only. I find out Quanah's daughter, Sashay is 9-years-old and just had a liver transplant. She is awake but her body seems lifeless as if fully asleep as she sits in her stroller. Her face appears a bit yellowish which I learn later is common with liver transplants. 
Maria tells me her baby was born pre-mature and is in Intensive Care in an incubator. I talk to Maria on how she might just try holding (with both hands) her pre-mature baby through the inserts of the incubator, with one hand under her little head and the other under her pelvis or on her belly. I am not sure how to explain…to a first timer, about purposefully holding two points at once to help create “energy flow".  She listens attentively.
Maria finally confides in me has lower back ache. After pulling out some handouts for the back I take a calculated risk. They all look a little surprised as I improvise by grabbing a toy ball from a stack of toys in the living room, put it next to my spine and start rolling on my back in the adjoining living room. I now have a small audience. The little girl with eye cancer is playing with toys next to me and her parents are also watching me from the kitchen.  The cleaning lady has pulled up a chair and helps to serve as an interpreter. I wonder what impression I am giving off—a balding 57-year-old man rolling on the living room floor on a kid's ball. I plan to get used tennis balls from the local tennis club and put them in socks for an inexpensive massage tool and give them out to each family. 

Next, I teach Quanah a few foot and hand reflexology points for the liver. Her body language shows some hesitation as I ask her to take off her shoe so I can demonstrate where the liver point is on the bottom of her foot. Finally, the language barrier is broken by touch. She shyly takes off her shoe and I put her foot gently in my lap. The small audience curiously looks on. I have a classroom at last. I am in my favorite element. Not the world--but the kitchen--is my stage. I could go on for hours. Soon they are on their way as we repeat back and forth our thanks for them coming and for me sharing. Inside I am rejoicing. All the background planning we have done, it is all worth its weight in gold. 
Later I realize I forgot to ask the cleaning lady what her needs were. Ay my next visit I will not forget.

As I prepare to leave, I have an unexpected heartfelt conversation with Steve, the House manager, who has lived on the property for eight years. He tells me there are many times when people return monthly, yearly, or even years later for either routine or maintenance treatments. He reports how shyly they always ask him, “do you remember me?” and he responds, “Yes of course I do. And yes you are always welcome here.” Steve says his intention is to put them at ease, so they feel comforted knowing they are welcome to back, at no cost, to their home away from home. I understand now how appropriate their name is--The Family House. 
Steve tells me how he has learned to keep his emotional boundaries with the ongoing swing from happy to sad events from one family to the next.  I get to know most families entire medical and personal history intimately he goes on. He talks about how he focuses on nurturing the other staff and volunteers so as to avoid burn out and supports them individually to help keep them coming back. He shares he is aware of the need to be totally present to serve the next family coming through the door, the never ending cycle of families coming and going. 
Most are coming from various parts of California and a few from others states with rare diseases. Their stays vary from two days, to two weeks, or two months and occasionally up to two years. It is a balance he says of the status of the kids. It can go in streaks. Bad streaks are when three kids will die in one week. Wow I think to myself, what a reality check. A world previously I only heard about but now the Family House has become part of my extended family.  Sad on one side yet I trust sharing TLC Touch will make a difference. I feel hopeful. I am grateful for Family House allowing me to share with them an opportunity to touch their lives both literally and figuratively.  For me personally this project is a dream come true after two years of planning, researching, forming a non-profit and making the God/Spirit sent vision to create Tender Loving Care Touch into a real hands-on affair. 

I wonder how I can keep in touch with the families I met. The mission of the Foundation for TLC Touch is to support families to give touch on a REGULAR basis. I have sent Mary and Quanah additional acupressure points for the heart and liver. Our goals include supporting them to give themselves therapeutic touch, healing touch for their children, and for couples to work with each other, if a “partner” exist. I am saddened to remember a frightening high statistic of how couples with very sick children end up separating from the overwhelming stress of having an ill child who might or does die. 

For each house I leave an expandable A-Z alphabetical folder with acupressure handouts showing points for symptoms and conditions that people with cancer suffer from. I just sent off a new “Fairy Tale Massage” sequence to give touch on the backs of younger kids. I wonder if anyone will refer to the folder without me being their in person to teach them. I would like to come here three times a week and also start Phase II which is to instruct others how to teach TLC Touch so there will be people coming here on regularly and support these families. We invite you to read about our goals on our website.