By Kevin Coughlin
Naomi Judd was a queen of country music in 1990. She and her daughter Wynonna were selling out arenas, thanks to 20 top-10 hits and a shelf of Grammys.
Then came the diagnosis: Hepatitis C.
“Doctors told me I had three stinking years to live,” Judd, 70, recounted on Friday to an auditorium full of doctors and clinicians at Morristown Medical Center.
The Kentucky native, a former nurse in an intensive care unit–where she may have caught the liver disease from an infected needle–reluctantly retired from The Judds. But she was not ready for a “dirt nap.”
“We believe these people in the white coats, and believe they’re God or something,” Judd said.
Instead, she experimented with holistic practices, from acupuncture to reiki, to deal with the crushing side-effects of her interferon treatments. And she made a vow:
“I’m going to live long enough to see the day when Wynonna and [daughter] Ashley don’t blame me for all their problems!”
During a 40-minute talk peppered with mischievous jokes and snappy banter with doctors, Judd described eight characteristics of survivors who beat “incurable” illnesses.
Some of her insights, she said, were gleaned from personal friends such as Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and leader of the Human Genome Project; Dr. Dean Ornish, whose heart health program is offered at the hospital’s Chambers Center for Well Being; and Dr. Andrew Weil, a spokesman for integrative medicine.
Judd’s prescription for beating the odds:
- A Sense of Spirituality. “We all must feel part of something larger than ourselves.”
- A Support System. We are social creatures and “need each other desperately.”
- A Sense of Humor. Laughter keeps you from obsessing about yourself.
- A Connection to Nature. Without a sense of wonder, we grow neurotic.
- Goals. “We all have to have a reason to live, to get out of bed in the morning.” One of Judd’s pet causes is the National Humane Society. She also advocates for the American Liver Foundation, and her own research fund. Since “retiring,” Judd has written several books, hosted a talk show, appeared in a movie and staged reunion tours with Wynonna.
- Good Nutrition. Cheetos used to be Judd’s favorite food. “Then I learned orange is not a food!” Andrew Weil taught her to regard her refrigerator as a medicine cabinet.
- Regular exercise and rest. Unplug to connect. “Our kids are being raised by appliances,” she said. “I do face-to-face instead of Facebook.”
- An Open Belief System. Aroma therapy. Music therapy. Many techniques may aid recovery, if given a chance, she believes.
‘THE SPIRIT-MIND-BODY CONNECTION’
“We don’t understand the spirit-mind-body connection,” Judd said, asserting that 40 million Americans–including herself–battle depression. Nearly 50 veterans a day commit suicide because of post traumatic stress disorder, she said. “It’s a national epidemic.”
Judd’s presentation was the third in the Peter H.B. Frelinghuysen Jr. Distinguished Lecture Series in Nursing. The Frelinghuysen Foundation donated $250,000 to the hospital to honor the late congressman.
Holistic practices are gaining more acceptance in the medical community, said Morristown Medical Center’s new president, Trish O’Keefe, a registered nurse.
“Evidence is expanding and supporting these therapies, for relaxation and reducing stress,” O’Keefe said after the talk.
Numerous holistic services are offered at the Chambers Center, opened in Morris Township by the hospital in 2014.
A patient’s attitude is crucial for healing, said Dr. Louis Brusco Jr., the hospital’s chief medical officer and a foil for some good-natured teasing by Judd.
“We see so many people who you don’t think will live, yet they live because they fought. And you see people who should be doing better, but they’ve given up,” said Brusco, an anesthesiologist and former intensive care unit doctor.
“I used to think of myself as keeping patients alive until they healed themselves, or, if you believe, until God does his work. Every doctor has to rely on a patient healing himself. We just provide the proper conditions.”
There are many missing links in patient treatment that need to be connected. Judd is right, So many cases seem to fall through the cracks in the system, when profit supersedes need.