Transplant patients try to pass the time waiting for their blood counts to go up, hoping nothing will fail in the process.
They struggle with frightening, unanswerable questions: Why am I in this situation? Am I being punished? What have I done wrong in my life to end up here?
Marilyn Brier walked the sterile hospital hallways, not as a nurse or physician, but as a different kind of healer. She used to sit down once, twice, sometimes three times a week with patients fighting against pain and anxiety – fighting against time.
Her life became driven by colors, and she often used guided imagery as a form of art therapy in treating her patients.
“I just feel the energy, and I think that’s a part of me that connects with individuals. I listen hard . . . I’m an active listener. My artwork reflects my inner sense of optimism, hope and healing that I bring to patients and their families,” said the Westwood mother and grandmother, who used art as a therapeutic tool to help patients.
Before she retired last year, Brier – a licensed independent clinical oncology social worker - spent seven years on staff at Massachusetts General Hospital cancer center.
She devoted several years of her life helping patients cope with cancer and connecting with them through her love of colors as a glass artist.
She worked with patients who had cancer of the kidneys, bladder, prostate and testicles. She co-organized and facilitated the hospital’s first prostate cancer support group - and was on staff when MGH was one of two facilities in the country to offer proton beam radiation therapy. According to the National Cancer Institute, This type of radiation kills tumor cells but does not damage nearby tissues. It is used to treat cancers in the head and neck and in organs such as the brain, eye, lung, spine and prostate.
She said her experience was rich, varied and allowed her to be creative.
“It was her being there that really gave life to those who felt hopeless,” said Betsy Lang, a fellow social worker who worked with Brier as part of the bone marrow transplant team at MGH, adding how Brier was able to channel her art in her work as a social worker with a deep empathetic mentality that shines light in the lives of her patients.
One patient she worked with illustrates her effective approach.
He was a professional musician, a single father – and the odds were not in his favor. He’d come for a second bone marrow transplant and faced two months, isolated and alone, in his hospital room.
Still, he was able to focus on what made him happy.
That’s where Brier came in.
“Marilyn gave him a new sense of meaning in his life,” said Lang, remembering the hours of therapy her colleague gave this patient, who shared his love of music.
Brier played a major role in helping this man get a $2,000 set of electronic drums on loan. He was able to put on headphones, listen to his drumming and record what he was doing.
In the end, Brier saw him through the transplant, pulled him out of hopeless fear. She said he found solace in his music making those long days and hours in isolation more meaningful – and his love of music gave him peace and purpose.
Brier decided to retire from her work at MGH to spend more time with her family - and to pursue her artwork.
But retirement hasn’t stopped her from continuing to employ her innate artistic sensibility to better her patients’ lives. She is now working two days a week in hospice care.
She said she understands the human powers in the arts, as demonstrated in her work with “Harmony Jewels by Marilyn,” each piece symbolizing a sense of harmony.
Even as a child, Brier had an eye for color and a heart for those seeking hope.
She grew up believing in the importance of helping others – finding herself as a young girl at Copley’s Boston Public Library, throwing small change into the hands of folks sitting on the street corner outside the T station.
Brier’s mother, Dorothy Sargon, 94, remembers how her daughter was entranced with playing with colorful buttons as a toddler.
“She would love to toy with them, put them in different positions,” recalls Sargon. “She was always caring and compassionate – a do-gooder.”
Sargon said she wasn’t surprised when her daughter went into social work, but questioned her desire to work with hospice. As a nurse, Sargon said she would often comment to her daughter: “Marilyn, these people don’t get better. Wouldn’t you be much better off with people who are going to get better like when I was a nurse?”
But Brier’s response would always be: “No, I want to help them. I want to help the families,” said Sargon.
“She’s always willing to help out whenever called on – and without being called on,” Sargon said.
Prior to joining MGH, Brier worked as a social worker at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Jamaica Plain for more than 10 years. She left there in June of 2001.
Since the early 1990’s, Brier has been a disaster mental health volunteer with the American Red Cross. She has participated in several federal disasters, including 9/11 helping those 199 families in Massachusetts who were directly affected.
Subsequently, the American Red Cross hired her to continue working with the families and providing outreach to the community as the disaster mental health coordinator.
Brier graduated from Lesley College with a degree in elementary education. She continued her studies at Columbia University School of Social Work and completed her second year of study at Boston University School of Social Work, where she received her master’s in social work.
Bringing art therapy to her practice was something Brier connected beautifully and quickly to her patients, said Lang.
“Marilyn is able to bring about some kind of spiritual quality in her work as a therapist with her cancer patients, helping them make meaning out of sometimes meaningless things.”
For more information on Harmony Jewels by Marilyn, visit www.harmonyjewelsbymarilyn.com
October is awareness month for Domestic Violence. Brier is contributing 10 percent of proceeds from her sale at the Needham High School PTC Craft Fair on October 23, 2010 to Renewal House, a shelter in Roxbury for families in crisis.
Linda Thomas writes ‘Faces in the Crowd’ for the Westwood Press. Contact her with comments and suggestions at lindasfaces@gmail.com.
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