While cancer treatment is essential to a patient's survival it can be a frightening experience.
Many patients worry about the severe side effects like nausea and fatigue.
But a new program is making cancer treatment a little bit easier for some patients.
Leslie Lampert isn't at a day spa, she's actually getting a foot massage during chemotherapy treatment for Colon Cancer.
"They make you feel really good while you're going through all this. Its a challenge." says Leslie Lampert, a Colon Cancer Patient.
Being diagnosed with cancer is a terrifying experience, which is often compounded by the fear of treatment.
"You go through a lot of emotions. You're scared. You're anxious."
The chemo, hormone and drug therapies used to treat cancer often cause extreme fatigue, nausea and pain.
That's what led cancer survivor Pamela Schein Murphy to find some comfort.
She created the Rest Initiative, the non-profit organization provides free massages to patients at the NYU cancer center.
Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, Murphy didn't want others to suffer through treatment the way she did,
"Its so much about feeling awful and I just thought there has to be a way to infuse some wellness into that process."
Doctors say patients couldn't agree more, "We've ask them what kinds of things are you helped by during this and its not just stress, fatigue, some of them say that their pain is lessened, that their nausea is lessened." says Dr. James Speyer, Medical Director at NYU Clinical Cancer Center.
Carol Breckenridge remembers the first time she had a massage during treament for breast cancer, "I spent hours and hours and hours here, and that day I went away feeling relieved."
And many more patients may soon benefit from massage treatments.
There are plans to expand the program across the country.
For more details on the program, you can log onto Rest Initiative
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