One of her key initiatives has been to support those undergoing cancer treatment. To make this a reality, she began by training her team in oncology services and collaborating with medical massage professionals to develop specialized body and facial treatments to alleviate pain, reduce tension, and soothe skin affected by chemotherapy and radiation.
O’Brien sought to take this initiative further by partnering with Mount Sinai, where Naturopathica aestheticians now provide oncology relief massages directly to patients. They are actively working to secure more partnerships to expand the program’s reach.
Last fall, in the midst of executing her vision, O’Brien received her own diagnosis of Stage 1 breast cancer, making her not just an advocate but also a patient benefiting from the very work she is championing. Here is her story, as told to Kate Sullivan.
I had no family history. None. Never had a biopsy; never even a callback. I’d never in my life had a bad mammogram before. Then, in November of last year, while I was on a work trip in Palm Beach at The Colony Hotel, launching Naturopathica’s new spa program — tailored massage and skin care services for people undergoing cancer treatment — I got the call. I had stage-one breast cancer.
I called the physician who is my partner at Mt. Sinai in New York City where we’d launched our Oncology Care Program, and I shared the news. It was a Thursday. She told me, “I will do your surgery on Tuesday if you get me your files by tomorrow.” I got back to New York on Friday and literally hoofed it over there. I had my surgery that Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
The team at Mt. Sinai was really wonderful. They got me everything I needed. I was so lucky. I’d religiously gotten regular mammograms every year and I credit the practice with catching this at stage one with no spread. But I still needed to have chemo and radiation. There’s something called an Oncotype DX test that measures your risk of your cancer returning on a range of one to 100 — and if you’re a 25 or above, then you must do chemo and radiation. I was a 31.
I shaved off my hair because I didn’t want to deal with it falling out. When I told my kids, my son, who is a D1 tennis player at a college in Virginia, Facetimed me. I looked at the phone and saw that he’d shaved his head too. So did half of his team.
As lucky as I felt, I also went down a million rabbit holes at once about why this happened. Well, what kind of food am I eating, and is it all organic? Is it all grass-fed? Should I not be eating meat anymore? What is dairy, you know, like, what’s all that stuff it goes through, right? Is alcohol really the devil? Water in plastic bottles is pretty bad, right? I also thought about the stuff that people don’t talk about — the stressors and trauma that happen in life. Women, we’re like shock absorbers — we take it in, and we move on. I’m going to generalize, because that’s how I believe that we operate. We work, we’re mothers, we’re partners, we’re whatever. We’re doers. We’re not complainers. There’s no time or space for really trying to understand what trauma might have happened to you. And trauma and stress are toxic substances.
There’s just so much all of us girls go through, and we all could use a hand. That’s why while I have worked in the beauty world for years, I have always worked with women’s organizations on the side, mostly around domestic violence and sexual assault trauma. During Covid, I got a master’s in social work because I wanted to endeavor into that world more. But given Naturopathica’s overarching ethos of healing and wellness, offering skin care treatments and specialized massages for cancer patients was a no-brainer. One in two men and one in three women will develop cancer in their lifetime and one in eight women will experience breast cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.
We launched our treatments at our East Hampton and Chelsea spas first. Soon clients were sending us pictures of their skin, their rosacea, psoriasis, and other perpetual skin issues caused by radiation. We expanded to our other NYC spas and then some of our spa partners reached out such as The Colony Hotel in Palm Beach and The Kohler Water spas wanting to have their staff trained. We forged our partnership with Mount Sinai, which has been just so wonderful, and we now have a partnership with Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center in Philadelphia that starts this month. We’re also training therapists and aestheticians at Miraval in the Berkshires and at Mollie Aspen.
I hate to say that the “cool thing” about me getting cancer was that I could really validate our treatments. Chemo and radiation do not feel good. How did I get so lucky that I can have a healing massage on a regular basis? That I can have medicinal skin care — facials utilizing lymphatic techniques that were soothing and that relieved tension and made sure my skin stayed great? I figured hair would totally grow back. And boobs? I’d get better ones. What mattered to me was my skin, because when you get skin damage, it’s really hard to come back from it. There was a different sense of care to be touched by a therapist who was a true healer. I can certainly speak for our Naturopathica therapists and aestheticians, but what is heartening to me is that there’s consistency in all of our spaces and our people are really unique and special in their approach. It’s scary and emotional — you’re dealing with patients who are vulnerable. It takes a really special person to want to go into Mount Sinai and touch people while they’re hooked up to chemotherapy. It’s a crime this isn’t covered by insurance.
I worked through my treatment, and I’ve got to be honest — it was not easy. I started the chemo in December, two days before Christmas. I remember it by holiday. I finished radiation in May, and, honestly, I’m still tired.
I’m a single working mom. Luckily, my kids are older, but I’m still paying for college, and I have other responsibilities. I’m taking care of a mother. I’m running a business — and it’s a wonderful, environment where we have a huge opportunity to do a lot of good. Our Oncology Care Program was the last thing I wanted to derail. All of the calls I needed to be on, I was on. Because of Covid, people are used to Zoom and Microsoft Teams. But there were also times when people would come up to my apartment for meetings. It wasn’t weird for me to have my entire team know what was going on with my health. I feel like we’re just humans, and people get sick. People have stuff.
The kind of the beautiful thing about a cancer diagnosis is that it gives you the liberty to be nicer to yourself and not be so critical. I would get up a little later. I let go of my schedule. I did a lot of work from home. I did walk on the treadmill pretty much every day, just so I could pretend like I was trying to sweat a little bit. But I didn’t go crazy by any stretch. I ate really well. I slept whenever I needed to, even during the day. If I needed to nap, I would lie down on the couch. I binged a lot of good TV at night. I also but up boundaries around anyone in my life who was not feeding me in some way. I had always meditated, but now my meditation is turbocharged. I went to a transcendental meditation course and got a mantra that’s just for me. I meditate for 20 minutes in the morning and then 20 minutes in the early evening.
Throughout my treatment, I felt so loved by my friends and my family. I know it’s going to sound morbid, but I was like, “Okay, if it’s if it’s all over now, I had a great life filled with really good people.” Every time I went for a chemotherapy treatment — which are long — I had two different people who would come and switch and be there with me. They made sure I got home okay. They wanted to hang out and bring me food. My daughter’s roommate got me a bathrobe, which was the greatest thing; it’s warm and yummy. And it’s stuff like — bringing someone comfort — that goes a long way.
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