A point of honor

Alicia Robinson

People sometimes grow angry or withdrawn over the death of a loved

one.

Mary Snyder had a different reaction. The death of her ex-husband

from cancer inspired her to go back to school and start a whole new

career in Oriental medicine, with the hope that she could help ease

others’ pain.

The Costa Mesa resident has opened the Integrated Acupuncture

Clinic, where she practices the ancient art of inserting small

needles under patients’ skin to release energy and promote healing.

Snyder said the stainless steel acupuncture needles stimulate

specific points on a patient’s body to encourage the healing process.

Becoming an acupuncturist was quite a change for Snyder. The

53-year-old mother of three was a court reporter for more than 20

years.

She had finally begun working on her undergraduate degree when she

and her children learned her ex-husband had had a stroke. Though the

couple had divorced, they remained close.

Snyder and her children were stunned. Her ex-husband was taking

chemotherapy to treat his cancer and, as the doctor explained, heart

attacks and strokes are not uncommon among chemotherapy patients.

After the stroke, Snyder said, the doctors and insurance company

didn’t try to help her ex-husband recover. He died within two months

of the stroke.

“They did not rehabilitate him because they knew he was terminal,”

she said. “They just let him lay there and die.”

Soon after, Snyder said she came across information issued by the

National Institutes of Health recommending acupuncture to prevent

heart attacks and strokes in chemotherapy patients.

“It was just so profound to me that I knew I had to pursue this

path, because I felt that my ex-husband died needlessly,” she said.

So she enrolled in the Oriental medicine program at South Baylo

University in Anaheim. Snyder now holds a bachelor’s in holistic

science and a master’s in acupuncture and Oriental medicine.

After renting space in another clinic for a year and a half, she

opened her own practice at 4020 Birch St. this summer, and it’s been

flourishing.

She sees patients with all kinds of complaints, such as asthma,

arthritis, chronic pain and fertility problems.

The “old guard” of Western medicine -- the American Medical Assn.

and the National Institutes of Health, for example -- is more open

than ever to Oriental techniques such as acupuncture, Snyder said, so

she gets referrals from doctors regularly.

But improving people’s quality of life by relieving their pain is

what makes the job worthwhile, Snyder said.

She hopes to expand her practice to include massage therapy and

physical therapy and possibly add a doctor to her staff.