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Peter Rappa
Peter J. Rappa M.D.
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Healing Knows No Boundaries

The power to heal...

HEALING KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES

I recently read an article on recovery from a severe brain injury. I have had a lot of experience with patients recovering from coma. It reminded me recently of a ski trip with college buddies who, on winter break, climbed High Top Mountain, racing down, making figures-of-eight. Poorly able to avoid the trees, a collision happened. Coma followed. Eventually the injured was transferred to a rehab recovery unit in a state that is best described by the Ranchos Los Amigos Medical Center Adult Brain Injury Services in Downey, California. They describe a 20-year-old boy capable of ability to follow single-step commands, some purposeful responses, focused only on objects presented to him. This state of ability represented progress, for a vigil was set up at the time of his injury. His family moved to be with him up in the Rocky Mountains. They left their California home and set up camp at the foot of his bed. When they first found him, the doctors had done all that they could. He was unresponsive with very limited, nonpurposeful movement, often only to pain or when frightened by loud noises. The committed parents sat by his bed, consistently talking to him, praying with him, listening to music, and reviewing videos of him and his family during happier times. With many months of caring, loving stimulation, and ever present companionship, the boy showed improvement. He evolved through the levels of cognitive functioning described so eloquently by Ranchos Los Amigos Medical Center’s scale of cognitive recovery. As a medical doctor interested in the recovery of brain injury, I am very familiar with the Ranchos Los Amigos scale of cognitive function and the recovery of patients in coma, for this story is common in my experience. Most recently, sports in America is following the journey of Kevin Pearce a young snowboarder who during this past Winter Olympics, sustained a brain injury and was in a coma. His parents sat vigil throughout his ordeal. Not only did they never leave his side but they opened a Facebook page which acted as a vessel gathering all of the good wishes, healing thoughts and positive energy directed his way.

“The brain has to mend itself…,” said Simon Pearce, a well-known glass maker, as told to NBC reporters. “…Often we just sit with him and hold his hand for hours.”

The northwestern VA is studying the efficacy of loving family members who talk to and stimulate their loved ones while in coma, and the question of course, that all family members want to know is, “Can they hear me?” Can the patient in coma hear and synthesize the prayers, the thoughts, and the visitations from friends and family, and does it, in fact, help recovery?

At the level of science, brain physiology is subject to sheer injury, repair, and recovery that requires glucose, nutrition, and the mediators of cellular recovery. Science, at the level of reason, is very provable. There is a system of cause and effect that is set up, double blind comparison studies are available to review, and several conclusions regarding recovery of the brain can be made.

However, my work with healing heart to soul explores a metaphysical level of recovery. At a metaphysical level, brain physiology is subject to consciousness levels for a particular set point. At a metaphysical level, we are told that awareness stays within an energy body often called the etheric body. That energy body animates our physical being. The energy body is the residence of subjective experience, and thus, the senses such as the listening to prayers, sent either locally or from afar.

During coma, I suspect the etheric energy body to be active. I suspect that the etheric body of the patient in coma is able to listen, to hear, to move freely through time and space, while the physical body lays still, poorly responsive with non-purposeful reflex responses only.

In my experience, the power of love animates the energy body, and it is my observation that recovery is accelerated through the loving intentions of the family vigils, the time spent together in love and hope for recovery, in the music and in the words and in the actions that transmit unconditional love to the injured. The energy body, or etheric body, receives that loving energy and I believe transmits the information into neuronal circuits, so the brain becomes active with spiritually elevated energy that fosters a physiological recovery.

As a medical doctor, assisting patients in recovery from brain injury with medications and therapy, I believe in the power of prayer. So if you want to help a loved one who is injured, sick, say a prayer for them or send loving energy in silence, for I believe they can hear you at a level medical science does not understand very well.

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About the Author
Peter Rappa

Peter J. Rappa, M.D. is the author of Healing Heart to Soul, which recounts experiences he has had as a healthcare professional.

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