Healthvues

The Backstory
This DVD was actually part of the very first idea I had that would eventually become Healthvues. About 6 years ago, I was inspired by a television program I saw on PBS that was basically aerial footage of famous locations set to music. I found myself becoming relaxed while watching - and thought that maybe there were programs I could purchase that would give me a feeling of flying, like a bird, that I could use as a relaxation tool. More on my findings - and the results of which that led to our experiential DVDs - in the Guided Relaxation DVD backstory blog. But what I found not only lacked the elements of a true immersive experience (I talk about that in the GR blog), but what was out there only served as what I’d call a “band-aid” solution. In other words, while I watched or listened to the programs I purchased, I was relaxed. But soon after, I began to feel the same stresses I had before watching/listening. I was not addressed the underlying causes of why I felt the need to watch these programs in the first place.

I have a teaching background, having been a graduate assistant and later an adjunct professor at Syracuse University. Also, one of my hobbies is restoring and hot rodding old cars. So my mindset is this: In order to fix a problem, you must first recognize the symptoms of that problem, identify the causes of the problem, and have access to the tools that will help you fix (or respond to) that problem. If you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day - but if you teach him to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime. Simple…universal…and not altogether original. Same goes for stress reduction - in order for these relaxation tools to be more effective, you must understand where stress comes from, how it’s hardwired into our biology, what external forces makes us stressful, how it affects our health and what came we do about it. Only then do these relaxation programs become not an end-all, but another tool in our box of techniques to help us change our lives.

I actually began production on this title first while developing the initial site map that would become Infertility Explained. However, when Alice Domar came on board for IE, we determined that it would be the more marketable DVD and we wanted to take full advantage of Ali’s contacts and the doors she opened for this DVD. So S&RE was tabled until IE was finished. But I kept Ali in mind this title, since she is one of the foremost experts in mind/body medicine and relaxation after all!

Once IE was released and it was met with critical and commercial success, I approached Ali about helping me finish the stress DVD. While there are many relaxation CDs and DVDs on the market (including ours), there were only one or two programs that dealt with the underlying causes - and none that explored these topics to the extent I wanted to. She was interested, and seeing how IE was received by the participants and the public, she agreed to help develop the stress DVD - adding to the content I had mapped out.

I had always thought this DVD would be effective as a three-part program. Part 1 would explain how stress is evolved in our bodies (the fight-or-flight response); its physical, emotional and health effects; and an overview of the common techniques one can use to effectively respond to stress. I believe that an effective video program is one that provides a connection for the viewer - if the viewer can identify with the content, then the video is more effective in communicating its goal. This is true for all the programs I produce for my corporate, medical and broadcast clients under iMed Design - and this is especially true for this program.

So in Part 2, I wanted to show to viewer that these stressors are universal and that the average person is experiencing these on a daily basis, just like the viewer might be. We hired a “patient” to prove this point. We wanted a real person to go through real relaxation techniques, then tell us how they felt. Ideally, we wanted to find someone who had never used relaxation techniques before. We conducted interviews and found our perfect candidate in Julie. She is a single mother, owns her own business and has experienced all the normal problems with relationships, work, life, etc. that most of us experience. Most importantly, she was willing to be honest about them. The icing on the cake for us was that she had been experiencing stress and depression and had seen her physician about it. Her doctor wanted to prescribe medications, but Julie did not want to immediate resort to drugs to help her, but rather find altenative methods to deal with her reactions. She had never practiced relaxation techniques before, but knew she needed to be in a more peaceful state. In her words, she knew what she wanted but didn’t know how to get there. We conducted her two-camera shoot one evening (during a blizzard, I might add) to make sure what we did was real time, not edited. Nothing was rehearsed or scripted. We first interviewed her about her background, her childhood, her present situation, and explored what is was about her current life that makes her stressed out. Again, all universal stuff. Then we guided her through a relaxation experience to show her (and the viewer) how to use the relaxation tools we talk about in Part 1. Finally, we wanted to see her reaction - if she was truly in a relaxed state - and she was. This was the perfect illustration of helping the viewer identify with our content and showing the viewer that it works.

In Part 3, I wanted to give the viewer a sample relaxation experience that they could then do on their own, using the newfound tools and background information they learned in Parts 1 and 2 to help them help themselves. It also serves as a sample of what you can expect on our Guided Relaxation experiential DVDs.

Not only have we finally finished what was supposed to be our first title, but we’ve are very pleased to discover that our original idea was right on the money. Stress & Relaxation Explained was recognized this year with a national Telly Award for excellence in health and wellness programming. It has received a lot of press attention (with more to come). And we have been approached by and included in the catelogs of colleges, educational distributors in the US, Canad and Europe, and several on-line distribution companies. S&RE has been a rewarding experience for us on many levels and serves as a foundation for the rest of our Relaxation Series.

The Backstory
One of the aspects of infertility I wanted to explore in Infertility Explained was adoption being an option. This, of course, is a misnomer because it makes it sound like adoption is a second-best alternative to starting or adding to one’s family. The reality is that adoption is NOT an “alternative” but rather an equally rewarding (and difficult) journey. Making the decision to get off the infertility roller coaster and explore adoption (or remain childless) - or explore adoption while undergoing treatments - is the reality of many infertility patients, including us. I wanted to at least present the notion of exploring adoption while undergoing treatments and what additional emotional challenges that path brings. After all, that was our personal decision - whichever worked first, treatment or adoption, would be our path. Whether that dual path made our journey more difficult or not is a moot point now, but with some forethought (based on information), we may have done things differently.

Alice Domar was instrumental in opening up doors to get nationally recognized experts to appear on Infertility Explained. We had a list of topics, she attached potential participants to those topics and made the initial contact. I took it from there. The name she thought of for this adoption aspect was Patricia Johnston, noted adoption author, publisher and multiple adoptive parent herself. She recognized the value of what we were doing, but also thought that a similar empowerment tool (the DVD) could be done for adoption. While trying to figure out the logistics of meeting her somewhere in the country for her interview, she suggested I attend the NACAC conference in Minneapolis where there might be opportunities to interview other adoption experts who were all assembled in one place.

I developed a list of topics that I would like to get in the can. These topics were based on what we, as adoptive parents ourselves, had experienced during our own journey - how to decide that adoption is right for you; how to decide which path to go; legal and contractual issues; special needs and medical issues; and others. The questions I developed led to more questions, and with her guidance and suggestions, I quickly had a lengthy “to-do” list. Pat was instrumental in contacting participants for this production and introduced me to many experts.

I rented a hotel suite and over an intensive 2-day period, I (along with Pat’s help) interviewed these participants, resulting in about 8 hours worth of raw footage. Initially, these interviews were supposed to be incorporated into Infertility Explained as an adoption topic, but I quickly realized that there was far too much compelling information to effectively edit down to sound bites. I decided that Adoption Explained would be Healthvues’ second title.

But it became clear that a single DVD would be limiting, so I made the decision to split the content into two DVDs: International and Domestic. Beyond the basic differences between the two bureaucratic processes, many of the topics that we have categorized into one type of adoption are actually very applicable to the other. For example, the role of the Medical Review (international), its indicators and results are also applicable to the photos and videos one might receive from a domestic agency. The issues that might affect a child in an orphanage in an Eastern Bloc country are the same issues that some neglected kids face here in the States. As more countries adopt levels of disclosure and openness in their foreign adoption processes, domestic open adoption issues become borderless. Legal contracts… transracial considerations… medical and cultural background differences… all are almost transposable to either type of adoption.

Currently, we offer the DVDs separately, but to those first considering adoption, they are both valuable.

The Backstory
Infertility Explained came about from personal experience. Around 1990, my wife and I began to try to conceive to start our family. I had been working as a video producer, animator and interactive designer for about 10 years at the time. We figured that with everything we were told in high school about conceiving - meaning: it’s so easy to get pregnant that even a toilet seat is hostile territory! - we’d have no problem once we stopped using contraception. And as with most couples, especially at that time, we turned to her OB/GYN for help when things weren’t working.

I had the “boys” checked - they were fine. We tried Clomid for 18 months straight before it was protocol to only stay on it for 6 months. Nothing. We tried a hysterosalpingogram to see if her tubes were blocked (and to open them up if they were) - one was just about gone and the other was indeed blocked. But that didn’t work either. My wife developed an infection in her abdomen (not a result of the HSG) that nearly took her life and required hospitalization for a few weeks. During surgery, they discovered a massive amount of old scar tissue surrounding her tubes and ovaries that were most likely a result of an emergency appendectomy at age 3. She basically had no tubes left and only one ovary, but it appeared to be functional. Her OB/GYN (who did the surgery and got the infection under control) said that it would have been a miracle if she became pregnant at any time in her life. All that money spent on contraception over the years!

We saw an ad for a local infertility clinic that was starting in our town and decided to attend their informational seminar. We liked what we heard and made an appointment. The doctor was very caring and empathetic, but the only educational materials he could give us were very complicated JAMA type articles, filled with terms and language that would make a lawyer confused. He admitted that that was best available. An offhand comment of mine (”If you ever need a website…” - and he did) led to the development of what we think was the first interactive, humanistic educational program for infertility patients that was written BY patients - namely us. An Interactive Guide to Infertility was a comprehensive CD-ROM program that explained in detail the diagnostic tests and various procedures that constituted Advanced Reproductive Techniques (ART), complete with high-end graphics and video.

All this time, we were undergoing treatment, so we intimately knew from which we spoke. We went through - oh… I think 8 cycles of IVF treatments. She had another surgery to try to remove all that scare tissue and her bladder was nicked in the process. We went through more rounds of IVF with donor eggs. Contrary to logic - her uterus was perfectly fine and there was no reason why she shouldn’t carry an embryo to term - none of the embryos implanted ever took. The emotional toll on both of us (mainly her though) was extraordinarily difficult. Our friends and family never really understood what we were going through. However, our marriage was strong to begin with, we committed to being on the same page no matter what, and this actually made us stronger. I had been charged with exploring adoption as an option for us during the latter stages of our treatments (read the backstory on our Adoption Explained DVDs in this blog) and in early 2000, we decided to stop treatments altogether and get off the roller coaster.

The CD-ROM was very well received and I decided to try to take it national. We attended the 2002 American Society of Reproductive Medicine’s annual worldwide conference in Seattle as an exhibitor. The idea was try to sell the CD to other clinics and organizations as a customizable educational tool. It was very well received and garnered the interest of many organizations, including the FDA. I was empaneled to speak to during the conference’s video program and was informed that this was the first time a commercial product had ever been invited to present. Interest in the CD soared and I believe it is still in use by some clinics and pharmacies.

The CD was certainly rewarding but I had always wanted to include more of the emotional risks and effects of infertility. Alternative treatments, like mind/body medicine, relaxation techniques and acupunture, were beginning to be looked at as enhancements to ART. So I wanted to include those as well. I began working on version 2 of the CD and decided that a DVD would be more user friendly.

Through a chance set of circumstances, I was introduced to Dr. Alice Domar, a pioneer in mind/body medicine, women’s issues and infertility, and presented my ideas. The clinic she was associated with, Boston IVF, coincidentally was looking to enhance their own educational outreach programs. Names were passed, doors were opened, and before long, through Ali’s contacts and reputation, we had a long list of national experts and other patients signed on to help develop the content that was to become Infertility Explained. With the generous help from BostonIVF, the DVD was released in October of 2004 at the ASRM conference in Philadelphia.

Because of our personal experience with just about all kinds of infertility treatments for an extended period of time, I was able to interview these participants from the perspective of the patient and develop the DVD in a compassionate, decidedly humanistic viewpoint. It was an instant hit at the ASRM conference and the 2005 ACOG conference (OB/GYNs) in San Francisco and continues to garner media attention and sell well. We have received many heartwarming emails and letters from people who have been helped by the emotional aspects of the DVD - including some unexpected sources: the mother of a fertility patient thanked us because she had not idea what her daughter was going through. The mother did not have problems with pregnancy in her day and the daughter was not very open to discussing it because she didn’t think her mother understood. The mother told us that the DVD helped her to understand the emotional roller coaster her daughter was going through and now their relationship is better because of it. That’s the kind of stuff we were aiming for - helping people.

Will there be an update? We’ve talked about it but nothing’s in the works right now. While some of the treatments have been updated, they are still basically the same. And the market is now expanded as more fertile women are using ART to control their pregnancy. But the emotional aspects we discuss are still as powerful and universal as there a few years ago. That’s probably why it continues to be a viable and popular title. We may produce a Spanish language version one day (we’ve had enough inquiries to almost justify the cost). But for now, it remains our flagship DVD.