Laura's New Heart: A Healer's Spiritual Journey Through a Heart Transplant [Paperback]

Laura L Fine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 2004

'Laura's New Heart'follows the dramatic journey of a vibrantly successful WholisticHealer, teacher, coach and counselor as she learns she has congestive heartfailure. Laura takes you along as she struggles in her efforts to implement herspiritual, creative and healing beliefs and practices in the face of herrapidly deteriorating condition. Deeply challenged by her years as a teacher,having trained hundreds of students, Laura is faced with the formidable task ofpracticing what she preaches, only to discover the flaws and limitations ofthese beliefs. We follow Laura through her daily life as she applies hertraining and understanding of various alternative-healing modalities in effortsto heal herself - to no avail. It is not until Laura is on her deathbed thatshe consents to be evaluated for a heart transplant after which a series ofuncanny miracles remarkably unfold. She invites you intimately into her mind,her way of thinking and coping with human struggles, failures and triumphs.Laura reveals her most intimate thoughts about living, dying, death, and herrelationship with God. Her deeply moving tale makes us laugh, cry and lifts us in an unsuspecting invitation to reflect on our ownbeliefs. Laura's natural teaching abilities are clearly extended to us in herwriting as she turn the lessons she learned into practical opportunities forthose of us who have ever been or will become seriously ill as well as those ofus who walk beside anyone facing a serious illness. This book inspires anopportunity to re-evaluate our lives as it broadens our perspectives aboutillness and wellness.I highly recommend this book toanyone in the field of healing arts, doctors, nurses,healers are invited to see a new refreshing perspective into the lives of thosethey touch on a daily basis.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Laura happily forced me to maintain the physician-client relationship despite wanting approaches not consistent with medical doctrine." -- Mimi Guarneri, M.D., F.A.C.C.
Medical Director, Founder
Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine

"Laura peeks us into the civil war created by heart failure. Through her struggles she shares a path to wellness." -- Dr. Mehmet Oz, Heart Surgeon
Author of Healing from the Heart and host of
Television series “2nd Opinion with Dr. Oz.

From the Publisher

Laura’s New Heart

When advocating for ourselves, how do we know when we are so sick that we need help?

Part of the problem with illness is that many of us hold on to carrying out our daily tasks for as long as we can adapting to our new limitations. By the time we realize we are too sick to continue we are stunned and ignorant of how to proceed in the most efficacious manner.

Doctors serve a valuable function in providing their vantage point of the seriousness of our problem. From inside ourselves, we are often unable to grasp the seriousness of a condition. Laura describes it as being a lobster in a pot on a slow boil that keeps adapting to the heat before the squeal of realization that it’s dying. A great doctor can convey the gravity of the situation without unduly frightening us.

The key point is to heighten our awareness with inner knowing. Many doctors push their solution without allowing patients to accept it. Participating in the solution with our will is a major part of the healing. Many people require a choice to bring their will and attention to their healing process.

Once recognizing the need for treatment we face more questions. What kind of protocol should? How do we find the courage, strength and finances to deal with our problems? When ill, how do we unearth the energy to look for the unique doctors and hospitals that allow us participation in the process?

We often hear from people in these situations, "I did not feel that ill," or " I just assumed I would get better."

In "Laura’s New Heart" she shares with us the moment of her realization about her illness when flying halfway across the country to teach a seminar, she found she had to have a wheelchair to get from one terminal in the airport to another. She assumed that her recently diagnosed asthma was acting up and redoubled her determination to continue on to her seminar. After three different medical practitioners suggested she needed a chest x-ray to determine what was wrong, she consented to get one. The results showed the functioning of her heart to be severely compromised. At age 45, Laura found herself facing heart failure.

She spent months with what her doctors have told her is idiopathic cardiomyopathy, or congestive heart failure, a heart condition that cannot support life. She pursues every available method for solving her problem without the transplant recommended to her. Coming from a 20-year background of alternative healing solutions she cannot believe such a drastic solution is necessary.

We next see Laura in the I.C.U. of a major hospital at 2 a.m. in the morning, unable to sleep. She realizes that she is actually dying. She now weighs 85 pounds. She looks 90 years old and her skin appears ashen.

She has looked at dying for weeks. Sometimes, with all the pain she suffers, she feels relieved at the thought that death may come soon.

At this moment, she realizes for this first time, from deep within herself that without the transplant, she will die. Her sister, several hours earlier, has stated the case decisively: "You can do something about this, Laura, you don’t have to die, you can get a transplant."

In the night, in the darkest time of her physical journey, she allows herself to accept the necessity of a transplant.

Once she chooses the surgery, she opens her inner gates of healing toward that modality. The universe seems to open up, sending ways to solve her problems. People come from all over the U.S. to help. Some of her spiritual family come to the hospital and help set her mind at ease about the procedure. The cardiologist with whom she has built a relationship comes to the hospital to be with her just before the surgery, even though she is neither on the hospital staff and nor part of the surgical team.

In the following days, she asks for help from her transplant team. Before this, she has only answered their questions, refusing to let them tell her the details of the transplant. She now wants to know every detail of what will happen, and what her life will be like with a transplanted heart.

Their answers, though reassuring, do not take away the nagging fears. She asks if she can talk to people who have had transplants. They send these people to talk to Laura. She asks them about their lives. One person is depressed. Two of them are happy with lives.

A friend comes into the hospital and conducts a hypnotherapy session, directing her body on a cellular level to accept the transplant; to see, from the core of her being, the transplant as a way of enhancing her life. Her anxiety is totally released. She comes into a state of profound gratitude that allows her body to fully accept the transplanted heart.

She does not see herself as courageous, she says in her book, "Laura’s New Heart." She did not feel that her decisions were particularly elegant – more that she did what had to be done. She was fortunate to have a 20-year background in healing, so she did not have to learn self-responsibility in the midst of crisis. We may note that most people who act in ways others consider courageous have lifetime habits of seeing what has to be done and doing it. Laura was constantly seeking out the most healing, expedient ways of doing whatever had to be done, to heal. She initially thought that what we she needed in order to learn, grow and heal, should look differently then the way the events of her healing crisis occurred. She ultimately found in the course of her journey, that she was always given exactly what was needed, and the painful opportunities became spiritual opportunities for achieving peace through surrender, trust, gratitude and faith.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: AuthorHouse (March 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1414064330
• ISBN-13: 978-1414064338
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,326,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laura's New Heart hits home!, August 27, 2004

By 

S. A SMOLKA - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Laura's New Heart: A Healer's Spiritual Journey Through a Heart Transplant (Paperback)

This beautifully written book describe one woman's journey through congestive heart failure to heart transplantion. The journey is filled with emotional highs and lows and is described from a spiritual perspective. Besides making for a fascinating tale---imagine coming back from the brink of death to lead a completely normal life---the spiritual guidelines offered should allow the reader to better cope with everything life has to offer.