APEX - Sue Ellen Taylor entered the small, quiet upper room in an otherwise empty office on Salem Towne Court and basked in the serenity of a newfound sanctuary.

The 39-year-old mother took comfort in her surroundings. The golden yellow walls, glistening in the afternoon sunlight. The East Asian statues keeping watch.

In the middle of it all, a lone massage table - draped in linens of purest whites and richest burgundies - beckoned.

This would be her personal oasis, if only for a day - a place free of the reminders that she, an unlikely host for an invasive form of breast cancer, is in the throes of a fight to reclaim her life.

Taylor, petite and athletic, discovered her cancer, an invasive ductal carcinoma, last fall during a self-exam at her home in Fuquay-Varina.

As far as she knows, she is the first woman in her family to be diagnosed with breast cancer.

"It's been an emotional journey," Taylor said. "At first, I dealt with a lot of fear and anger. Now that I'm seeing some results from treatment, I'm feeling a little more positive."

The massage - her first - didn't hurt either. Especially coming from someone who appreciates her frailties.

The masseuse, Cindy Wright of Pittsboro, knows the emotional, physical and spiritual toll wrought by cancer.

That's because Wright, owner of Serendipity Bodyworks in Apex, is in the midst of her own fight against the disease.

Wright suffers from an advanced form of a soft tissue sarcoma, a malignant tumor nestled deep within her abdomen.

She said her diagnosis has forever changed her life, and it's what led her to this emerging corner of the wellness world.

Wright specializes in massages for cancer patients, a core of customers once deemed too fragile for a typical massage.

"I have a totally unique perspective, I think, because of my own battle with cancer," she said. "I feel that I'm able to bring uncommon compassion to what I do. There's no other way, in my mind, to have this compassion or expertise than to be someone who has had cancer themselves."

The 47-year-old former paralegal was frozen in fear and overcome by anguish because of her diagnosis in 2005.

She cried constantly and pleaded with God to figure out why it happened to her.

"It was devastating," Wright said. "That's one of the scariest words in the English language - cancer."

But she didn't flinch. She decided to be an advocate for and, in her own way, a healer of other cancer patients. What that would be wasn't clear until the spring of 2007.

In a Cary doctor's office, Wright stumbled upon her next career in the pages of a medical journal. "I was flipping through the pages and came across a story on oncology massage," she said. "It crystallized in my mind at that moment that this is what I was supposed to do."

And so she did. Wright endured a grueling 11 months juggling school, family, her full-time job and chemotherapy to earn a degree in massage therapy.

She then earned her certification from the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage.

Bodywork and is licensed by the state as a massage and bodywork therapist.

Debunking myths

Oncology massage, as it is called in the industry, is "the adaptation of massage to safely nurture [the] body, mind and spirit of anyone who is dealing with cancer," according to the Society for Oncology Massage, a nonprofit professional organization that educates cancer patients and medical professionals on the values and methods associated with a growing niche industry.

The origins of the practice can be traced back at least 20 years, according to industry leaders.

In 1990, a group of teachers, in what was then a largely unknown field, began to question some longstanding medical beliefs about the effects of massage on cancer patients.

Medical professionals had long held that massage might put patients at great risk, according to Bruce Hopkins, a founder of the society. "In general, it was received as conventional wisdom to never ever touch a cancer patient," he said. "The thought was that it would cause the cancer to spread. It became sort of an extension of the Hippocratic oath to first do no harm."

That meant that patients suffering from cancer were largely cut off from an industry reserved for the healthy. Hopkins said that most massage therapists avoided oncology patients, who were seen as a potential liability.

Fortunately, Hopkins said, scientific research finally debunked what he and others had held as myth.

"Over several years, it was established that massage doesn't have anything to do with cancer spreading," he said. "The spread of cancer is a sophisticated biological process. Massage is no more likely to cause it than walking or sitting down."

A three-year study conducted at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York appears to show that touch therapy might have limited healing effects on cancer patients.

Of 1,290 patients observed before, during and after receiving massage therapy at Sloan-Kettering, most reported significant improvement - as much as 50 percent in some cases -- in symptoms such as pain, fatigue, anxiety, nausea and depression.

The results of that study, conducted from 2002 to 2004 by doctors Barrie R. Cassileth and Andrew J. Vickers, were published in the September 2004 edition of the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

The findings led Cassileth and Vickers to conclude that massage therapy "appears to be an uncommonly non-invasive and inexpensive means of symptom control for patients with serious chronic illness."

But in the hands of unqualified therapists, cancer patients can still be at risk for other complications, Hopkins said.

Extra care needed

Perhaps few know the potential dangers better than Sue Ellen Taylor, who until recently had avoided massage parlors because of the risk of a condition known as lymphatic obstruction, or lymphedema.

The chronic illness, which can cause persistent swelling of the arms or legs, is a serious one and can be fatal if it is mismanaged. While Taylor doesn't have the condition, she is at greater risk for it than some cancer patients.

"The thought of massage made me nervous," she said, "because I knew there was a chance for lymphedema."

Two of the six most common causes of the condition are tumors and radiation therapy. Taylor already has experienced one of those causes - 19 of her lymph nodes were surgically removed in December to determine whether her cancer had spread. It had.

As a result, Taylor receives weekly chemotherapy treatments at WakeMed in Cary. Those treatments will be followed by a course of radiation therapy.

Wright said that oncology massage therapists are trained in techniques that help fluid and waste from the lymphatic system drain through the right channels.

An untrained massage therapist, meanwhile, might unknowingly knead those fluids as well as chemotherapy medications into the lymph nodes, putting a patient like Taylor at greater risk for developing the disease.

"People with a history of cancer need to be careful who they see," Wright said. "It's also important for therapists to know their clients' medical histories and the risks those people might be facing."

Field starting to grow

That the field of oncology massage has figured out a way to bridge the divide between doctors and patients - and has learned how to manage the associated risks - is why the industry is starting to thrive, Hopkins said.

Slowly but surely, more therapists - many of them who have battled cancer or know someone who has - are entering this line of work.

Since its creation just three years ago, the Society for Oncology Massage has grown from a seven-member board of directors to an international network of 135 licensed professionals.

"I can't say there's been a big surge at any point," said Hopkins, who runs his own oncology massage practice in Portland, Maine. "But we've seen steady growth."

But perhaps more important, Hopkins added, is a growing acceptance of the practice within the medical community. Hopkins himself helped start an oncology massage program at Mercy Hospital in Maine.

Others have followed. Major medical centers like MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City also have added oncology massage therapists to their ranks.

"They're very interested in therapists who are a part of their programs being properly trained," Hopkins said.

Patients like Wright and Taylor are reaping the benefits of such successes in their own ways.

Relief from stress

During her recent visit to Serendipity Bodyworks, Taylor wore a peaceful expression as Wright gently massaged her back, her legs, her feet.

For an hour, it was as if her worries - for her family, her future - melted away. Then she opened her eyes and broke the silence.

"The experience of having cancer really is a stressful one," Taylor said. "There are so many things in life that you feel like really are beyond your control.

"I'm so glad to have someone like Cindy here to perform this kind of a service," she added. "It really does help you feel like you regain a little bit of order."

Wright, one of only four licensed oncology massage therapists in North Carolina, is happy to have found what she believes to be her life's calling.

She no longer worries about if or when her cancer might claim her life, only what she can do to bring comfort and healing to others.

"I feel blessed in a way that cancer brought me to this line of work," Wright said. "It's kind of an unfortunate blessing, but it's one I'm very thankful for."