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Helping heal suffering halfway across the world

After seeing acupuncture save her husband's life, a local woman is heading to Africa to teach the art to others.

By CRISTINA SILVA
Published November 26, 2006

There it was, the word malaria, jumping out at her in thick bold letters.

The magazine advertisement spoke of combating the disease, as well as AIDS, HIV, and tuberculosis in Uganda by teaching acupuncture. But for Beth Cole, a 46-year-old acupuncture physician in St. Pete Beach, the black print brought back terrifying memories.

She recalled when her husband, Rick, came home from a marine research trip in New Guinea complaining of flulike symptoms.

The ensuing days were spent shaking in the sweat-soaked sheets of a hospital bed. It was 1992, and she thought he would die from the malaria he had contracted while abroad.

At the time, she was an acupuncture physician student. She took her husband to her teacher, who injected Rick with 26 needles across his body and recommended herbal teas until they could find a doctor who specialized in infectious diseases.

To this day, Cole said she believes acupuncture saved her husband's life, and she's pretty confident it could save the lives of others, too.

Next month, Cole will travel to Uganda for two weeks to train African health care workers to use acupuncture to help relieve symptoms associated with HIV, AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

After reading about the trip in the advertisement, she signed up.

Even if she gets overwhelmed by the poverty and sickness while in Uganda, she said she feels she must help. Her husband will be her motivation.

"When you face death, you remember it," she said.

In Africa, Cole will work with a small group of acupuncture physicians as part of The PanAfrican Acupuncture Project, a nonprofit group based in Brookline, Mass., that has been introducing acupuncture to medical professionals in Uganda since 2001. They will also give boxes of disposable needles to health care workers.

By slowly inserting needles into certain points in the body, acupuncture can help relieve headaches, fever, weight loss, insomnia, depression, and boost an ill person's immune system, among other things, said Richard Mandell, founder of the PanAfrican project.

"We don't cure HIV," he said. "Our goal is not be the primary care with any of those illnesses, but to reduce pain and suffering."

Mandell said he has seen acupuncture perform miracles when traditional Western medicine would not work. In one case, he recalled a 12-year-old girl suffering from diarrhea who, after one needle was inserted near her thumb, was cured.

Cole realizes some might balk at the idea of using acupuncture to combat a virus like HIV but says nonbelievers need to catch up with the times. Traditional Chinese medical practices like acupuncture and herbal remedies have become increasingly mainstream in recent years.

Veterinary clinics offer holistic treatment for animals. Injured athletes routinely use it, as do some nurses at retirement homes.

Cole plans to return to Uganda at least three more times to train the health workers. She needs to raise $4,000 for each trip she will make to Uganda to pay for the travel costs.

Earlier this month, Cole's neighbor told her she could raffle off a week at their four-bedroom, waterfront Pass-a-Grille home to raise money. Raffle tickets start at $25.

Rick Cole, a 51-year-old oceanographer who recovered from the malaria soon after he was treated, thinks the trip to Uganda will change his wife forever.

"She has found her calling," he said. "She is a healer."

Cristina Silva can be reached at (727) 893-8846 or csilva@sptimes.com.

[Last modified November 25, 2006, 22:30:55]