Coloring keeps minds off chemotherapy

Chemotherapy she undergoes to try and rid her body of leukemia makes 4-year-old Merysa Lozada itch.

When she digs the tiny nails on her left hand into her scalp, strands of light brown hair fall out onto her shoulders.

With her right hand, she colors, often changing crayons to fit the color scheme she sees as pretty for the girl on the page of the coloring book.

"Mommy, look how pretty," she says to Denise Lozada, who is sitting on the other side of a little table inside the Children's Hospital of Nevada at University Medical Center. "Look what I did."

Though her voice is muffled by the mask she wears to keep out germs, there is no mistaking the excitement over her creative effort. Fastened to an IV pole, she giggles, shaking the hanging bag of medication as she hurriedly pushes her coloring book toward Mommy.

"This is so good for them," Shaunta Daugherty says as she watches her 9-year-old son, Keiontae Williams, who is trying to fight off a debilitating infection, color with Merysa. "It really takes their minds, and our minds, off what they're going through."

At the table coloring with the children are Amy Villareale-Hardy and Nina Lawler, who brought the coloring books and crayons. Villareale-Hardy heads a nonprofit called Coloring for Chemo/Comfort, which has given hundreds of coloring books and boxes of crayons to a number of medical institutions, including the Nevada Cancer Institute's branch at UMC.

That a simple coloring book and crayons would help dissolve stress -- for ill adults and children and their caregivers -- is something Villareale-Hardy said she stumbled upon last year when Lawler was going through chemotherapy for breast cancer at the Nevada Cancer Institute.

"Her chemo treatments were lasting anywhere between three and five hours," the 47-year-old Villareale-Hardy said. "As much as I tried to talk with her and entertain her, I just didn't think it was that relaxing for her."

As she was shopping, Villareale-Hardy saw some coloring books and crayons. She remembered the sense of peace she felt coloring as a child and with her own children.

Villareale-Hardy suspected she and Lawler would enjoy allowing their "inner child" to take over during the chemo treatment.

Other patients and their caregivers at the cancer institute in Summerlin wanted to color, too.

"Before long, I was bringing all kinds of coloring books and crayons," Villareale-Hardy said. "It just really took off. It was a way for caregivers and their loved ones to still be close together without forcing conversation."

Lawler was surprised that she was "a woman in my 40s, enjoying coloring."

"It was such an 'Amy' thing, so silly, to give me a coloring book, but I loved it because it made the time fly by," Lawler said. "Here I was enjoying coloring in a Princess Barbie book again. It's so peaceful, so much like when you were a child. It may sound crazy, but I even loved the smell of the crayons again, with my hands so busy making something pretty."

It turned out that many people at the Nevada Cancer Institute associated coloring only with good times, when brothers and sisters would all be down on the floor coloring, when you didn't have to worry about rides, when parents were always looking out for you.

Jennifer Lewis, a registered nurse at the cancer institute, said patients then and now enjoy the way coloring takes them back to a simpler time in their lives, when cancer was something they had never heard of.

Lewis said Amy's message on baskets of coloring books and crayons she still leaves at the institute resonates with patients:

"Let us help you take a step back in time when you received a brand new box of crayons and special coloring book. The smell of the bright beautiful colors in that box and turning the crisp new pages to find that 'one' special picture that spoke to only you. ... It takes you back to a time of little worries, no pain and feelings of care and comfort."

Dr. Ole Thienhaus, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, said the beauty of coloring during a difficult time in one's life is that it "gives you a creative boost without the threat of not being good enough. It's not like trying to write a novel or paint, where you worry that you don't have talent."

You experiment with color and express moods through color in an effortless way, he said.

Coloring connects people to the innocence of childhood, when people weren't burdened by responsibility and expectation, Thienhaus said.

"It's a little like a comfort food," he said. "It is so soothing. To do something creative at a difficult time has a very positive effect. It has the added effect of being able to be done in groups, so you can bond. You're not competing as you do in computer games. You simply can't lose, and you realize the joy of creativity, of bringing something to fruition."

Villareale-Hardy said she and Lawler, whose maiden name is Van Beck, have worked together for nearly 20 years at Van Beck & Associates, a Las Vegas firm that puts the style in commercials and print ads for both local and national firms through a creative use of sets and props. Their work stretches from TV to The Oprah Magazine.

"It's only natural that we'd now do this coloring thing together," Villareale-Hardy said.

Lawler, now cancer free, laughs as she gives away a secret for that slow pour of syrup you see in TV commercials featuring pancakes. "That's really motor oil because it pours slower," she said. "We make it go even slower by keeping it cold."

Villareale-Hardy often chokes up as she remembers how people have thanked her.

"Many adults are surprised when I give them a coloring book," she said. "Once there was this lady in her 70s at the Nevada Cancer Institute who came up to me after I gave her one during her husband's chemo. She was crying. She kept thanking me. She said the two hours she colored was the only time she didn't think about her husband's cancer."

Churches and schools, as well as individuals, have donated crayons and coloring books to Coloring for Chemo/Comfort, which is on Facebook.

"I've really appreciated the help," said Villareale-Hardy. "What is nice is that we're generally just talking about stuff you can pick up cheap at the dollar store. We also have been picking up little crafts and hats kids can decorate by themselves, too."

At the Children's Specialty Center of Nevada, children being treated for serious illnesses have come to appreciate coloring more than movies, said Annette Logan, administrator for the clinic across from Sunrise Children's Hospital.

"Children enjoy the creativity," she said. "It's important that they get a chance to express themselves."

On Thursday at the Children's Hospital of Nevada at UMC, child life specialist Cathy Coleman joined the parents of Merysa Lozada and Keiontae Williams as they colored.

Merysa's mother said she is hopeful her little girl will be home by Christmas.

"The chemotherapy is really getting to her now, though," she said. "She's throwing up and really having problems with her skin. And those steroids they put her on have made her gain 20 pounds."

Daugherty watched Keiontae's 4-year-old brother, Taejon, climb up on a chair and start coloring with his big brother.

"Keiontae doesn't have the energy or appetite he used to have, but I think he's getting better now," she said. "For a while they didn't think he was going to make it."

Fighting a valley fever fungal infection that has been attacking his internal organs for several weeks, Keiontae's half-closed eyes and sighs show he is obviously weary, but he is engrossed in his coloring.

"OK," he said to no one in particular, nodding and smiling as he studied how he made the face of Batman's arch enemy, the Joker, a bright green. "That's good."

Coleman, who is constantly trying to find new things to interest pediatric patients, admits she is more than a tad surprised that simple coloring carries such interest among today's young patients and their loved ones.

"It's amazing how, with video games and computers and TV, they love to get back to the simplicity of coloring," she said. "We have this perception that people need all these other things; but people want to express themselves in an easy, non-stressful way. And, of course, while they're doing it, they forget about the next procedure and the next test because they're being creative."

Contact reporter Paul Harasim at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2908.