Shannon Marshall, RMT at SickKids
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As an RMT on the paediatric palliative care team at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Shannon Marshall has had the opportunity to help many children with life-limiting illnesses.
Many of the children Shannon works with are unable to move around due to their illness, and massage therapy can help with chronic and acute pain, discomfort, and decreased range of motion. It can also help the children cope with the reality of their diagnosis.
“For hospitalized children, massage therapy brings comfort and relaxation, from receiving a needle poke to post surgery recovery,” Shannon said.
Many people aren’t aware that palliative care focuses on life and not death, and each child has a large medical and allied healthcare team available to them to ensure that the patient still focuses on being a child. Part of Shannon’s role is to facilitate this, and to provide comfort to the child and their families. She emphasizes that providing paediatric palliative care isn’t always focused on the sadness of the situation.
“It’s important to know that with the pain, sadness, and despair, what usually persists is hope, laughter, and comfort.”
Shannon’s role in helping the children and their families extends beyond the hospital, and she often plays a continuous role in their lives.
“The most rewarding aspect of working within paediatric palliative care is that I am repeatedly invited back into a critically ill child’s home and safe space, to provide massage therapy to the child, while all family members are enduring the most difficult time of their lives,” she said.
Many families have difficulty accepting paediatric palliative care for their children. One family early in Shannon’s career refused to accept that the paediatric palliative care team was there to visit their son as it was too painful. When their physician suggested massage therapy, they agreed to try it and the acceptance of massage therapy led the team and the family into a beautiful therapeutic relationship up to and beyond the death of their son.
“The first acceptance of palliative care may begin with massage therapy,” Shannon explained.
Although Shannon primarily works with critically ill children, she finds that ultimately, they are not much different than other children and she likes working for them for the same reasons she’d enjoy working with any child.
“I really like working with children because I appreciate their honesty, silliness, and vulnerability,” she said. “It’s important to know that these wonderful traits are not absent from the child who is in palliative care. And they are not missing from their family members either.”
There are some differences in Shannon’s work environment that wouldn’t be present in most work environments. The majority of the children that she treats are attached to tubes and wires that are then attached to some sort of machine. More often than not, she is required to wear gloves, a mask, and a gown while providing massage therapy. During most of her treatments, medical staff, families, or other patients are also in the room. She also attends weekly patient clinical rounds, where there is always something new to learn.
Although Shannon still finds one of the most difficult parts of her work environment to be that a large percentage of her patients will succumb to their illnesses, she finds the opportunity to connect with these children and their families, and improve their quality of life to be incredibly rewarding.
Learn more about the Paediatric Advanced Care Team at the Hospital for Sick Children.