Faces of Bryan

One of Susanah Friesen’s favorite parts of being a massage therapist is giving a massage to first-timers. She loves explaining the process and detailing the benefits of each method.

She always invites her new clients to ask questions and openly communicate with her about their needs and comfort level. However, convincing those first-time massage clients to come to the spa in the first place is probably one of the biggest challenges of the job.

“I've met a lot of people over the years who've never had a massage and they're pretty unsure,” she said. “I tell them, 'You’ll be fully draped, comfortable and feel secure.'”

She explains that massage is more than just a nicety or fun activity to splurge on; it’s a wellness tool for your body.

“It increases range of motion. It destresses the body,” she said. “It helps the body release dopamine and serotonin, giving great results for pain management goals and stress management.”

Massage therapy has been a passion of Susanah’s longer than the nearly 20 years she has worked in the industry. From a young age, she felt drawn to this career.

Answering the Call

During Susanah’s childhood, she and her mother would swap neck and shoulder massages often, and when she visited her grandma, Susanah would always sit and massage her feet. While she received a few pointers from her mom here and there, the practice came naturally to her, and she loved it.

Then one day, sitting and chatting while giving her grandma a foot massage, Susanah had an epiphany.

“She’s the one who really put the idea in my head that you can actually make a career out of this,” Susanah said about her grandmother.

Throughout high school, she honed her craft, giving all her friends and sports teammates massages to soothe tight or pulled muscles. Upon high school graduation, she went straight into massage therapy school and immediately felt at home.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that the career kind of picked me,” Susanah said. “It just felt like a natural choice, like this is what I was always supposed to do.”

Pursuing Her Life's Work

Susanah got her associate degree in massage therapy through the 18-month program at the Myotherapy Institute in Lincoln. Nebraska requires two licensing exams and over 2,000 hours of hands-on experience – more than any other state in the country aside from New York.

Her first job out of school was at a chiropractic office in town, where she teamed up with the chiropractors to create multi-disciplinary treatment plans for their patients. Her main contribution was massage therapy, but she also helped with other parts of treatment like ultrasound therapy, muscle stim therapy, exercises and stretches.

After nearly eight years at the chiropractic office, Susanah decided to take a position as a massage therapist at Bryan Health, where she could do all massage all the time.

Susanah began her Bryan Health career at Bryan LifePointe. When LifePointe ended its spa services, she then moved to The Spa at the April Sampson Cancer Center.

"She went into the transition with full steam ahead," Carly Oakland, Cancer Program operations manager, said. "She was full of enthusiasm and passion to make the next thing even better."

While The Spa is open to the public, the move gave Susanah the opportunity to work closely with cancer patients.

She even helped implement a program through Bryan Medical Center's Volunteers and Customer Care department in which she trains volunteers to give hand massages to patients receiving chemo treatments or infusions.

“It’s a really nice service. Somebody's going to come into your room, and they don't want to take any blood. They don't want a sample. They don't care about your numbers. They just want to be with you,” she said. “I like being able to help serve that population and add something positive to their treatment.”

It's all about being part of a full team providing care to patients and clients. Many of the providers, clinicians, practitioners and caregivers she works with all understand that each person contributes to helping someone feel better.

"We all have a role to play in helping people become aware of their bodies and and improve their bodies," she said.

It's one of the reasons she loves working at Bryan. With core values like "Care Like Crazy" and "One Team, One Purpose," she feels right at home.

"The core values that Bryan instills in their employees lines up with the core values that I have for my own personal life," she said. "I want that for this building, and I want that for the whole organization. We are players on the same team working toward the same goal."

Inspiring Health and Wellness

Even with 20 years under her belt, Susanah continues to fall in love with her job every day. No day is quite the same, because every body she works with is different.

“Our bodies are living, breathing, changing, healing things,” she said. “I don't have a scripted, methodical process that I go through step by step. I just kind of adapt and change. I can see a person five times, and their body is a little different every single time, because hopefully, they're getting better; they're improving. I don't think I ever do the same massage twice."

As a someone who works in the wellness side of health care, Susanah recognizes the importance of self-care – physically, mentally and emotionally – and reminds her clients of the same. 

"She does an incredible job of balancing her work and personal life," Carly said, "and practices what she preaches when it comes to wellness practices."

Often people will come in for a massage and apologize for their bodies, whether it’s because they have dry feet or a hairy back. It might just be one of Susanah’s biggest pet peeves.

“Nobody should ever apologize for their body,” she said. “Love it and appreciate it for what it is, for what it’s capable of.” 

She will remind her clients that they come to see her not because they are ashamed of their bodies, but because they appreciate their bodies and want to take care of them. 

“You want to help it feel as good as it can, because it needs to be able to work and carry you from day to day so that you can do all the things you need to do for yourself and for your family,” she said. “That's why you’re here, right? Because we love our bodies, and we want to take care of ourselves.”