Erin Pass helps neighbors help neighbors

To Erin Pass, providing care to patients goes beyond the walls of her acupuncture clinic.  She’s stepped outside of the boundaries common to doctor-patient relationships to bring a community together.

Pass created the Neighbors Helping Neighbors program this year to help ease the physical challenges and isolation of one her longtime patients, Heather Gardner-Muir.

An auto accident six years ago turned Gardner-Muir’s active life into wheelchair and house confinement unless someone helped her navigate the steps of her front porch.  

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Even after eight surgeries, Gardner-Muir spends most of her time debilitated in pain.  The lifestyle is a 180-degree shift from the life she used to live – running marathons and teaching English at Boulder’s Fairview High School.  

As a result of the accident, she no longer does either.

Her chronic pain started after a cortisone injection intended to relieve problems caused by the car accident hit a nerve root.  The damage sent searing pain whenever her right foot touched the floor.  

Surgeries aimed to alleviate the pain brought on a spinal staph infection and later a bacterial infection but no relief.

Medical bills mounted, while hope for relief dwindled.  Little money was left after her disability checks and her husband’s teaching salary covered the essentials of life with their two daughters.  

She was one of Pass’s first patients and over the years, the two became close friends.  Pass even sometimes makes the trek to Gardner-Muir’s home for treatments on days she can’t get a ride.

 “I wanted to do a fund-raiser for her but she wasn’t comfortable with the limelight,´ said Pass, owner of the Acupuncture Clinic.  “I asked her what I could do instead, and she said she couldn’t get her wheelchair down the front steps, and that kept her housebound a lot of the time.”

The cost of building a wheelchair ramp was out of the family’s range of financial motion.

So that’s where Pass started – bringing together volunteers and donors to make it possible for her friend to rejoin the world.

“I was in a class on self expression and leadership, and one of the premises of leadership is that it’s not about me but about inspiring people in the community,” Pass said.

“I contacted Heather’s friends and my friends, and they said what they wanted to do.  It just kept growing.”

She posted 70 fliers throughout Gardner-Muir’s neighborhood that described the project and invited everyone to a potluck.  Fifty people showed up on the final build day.  

Nahid Cohen was one of the friends who pitched in to help.  “People wanted to put their hearts and their time into it,” she said.  Inspired by the project, Cohen nominated Pass for the Community Service Award.

Individuals, coffee shops and restaurants donated food; contractors and good Samaritans donated expertise, labor and supplies.

 “Heather and Alan [her husband] have been awed by the results.  People did a perfect job.”

On her Web site, Pass writes: “This project wasn’t just about function, it was a labor of love. I’m not sure who is happier, Heather or me. This project has profoundly affected my life.”

For more information on the Neighbors Helping Neighbors program, see:  www.acupunctureclinicofboulder.com/interest.html.

Pass encourages people to contact her through the Web site with ideas for projects for the Neighbors Helping Neighbors program.

“I’m inspired.  I want to do more,” she said.