The backstory
Ruth said Mullenix is a breast cancer survivor, and when she was in the hospital recovering from surgery, a friend asked if she had an electric lift recliner chair at home. Mullenix said she did not have that type of chair but she’d be fine. When she got home from the hospital, an electric lift recliner chair was sitting by her door. The person who brought it said it was hers and told her to use it as long as she needed.
“When she called her friend to say, ‘I have your chair to give back to you,’ the friend said, ‘No, I heard so-and-so is having surgery’—so they passed it along to her, and then that person passed it on. So [The Healing Chair] was founded organically,” Ruth said.
Ruth said a lot of people sleep in the chair the first couple weeks post-surgery because their muscles are so weak and the lift function of the chair allows them to get up independently.
Although Ruth had a part-time job, when her youngest of four children went to college, she found herself with more free time. She contacted Mullenix and asked if she could start a similar nonprofit in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Mullenix agreed, so Ruth filed for nonprofit status and founded The Healing Chair-Dallas/Fort Worth in 2019.
“In the summer of 2019, I started with three chairs and did the first delivery that summer to Mimi Tran, the founder of the MeSquared Cancer Foundation,” Ruth said.
Who it's for
Since the nonprofit’s inception, Ruth has delivered 313 chairs. She said although most chair recipients are women recovering from breast cancer-related surgeries, she also has delivered chairs to mothers recovering from cesarean sections, men recovering from esophageal cancer, people recuperating from hip replacement surgery and more.
The details
Ruth has 30 leather chairs, which are cleaned between each recipient. She said her delivery zone is within a 45-minute drive from Southlake, where the chairs are stored. When people request chairs beyond that zone, she has met them at their doctors’ appointments in Dallas.
She said all but four of the chairs are the same exact model.
“It really works well because it comes in two pieces,” Ruth said. “The back lifts off, I can lift it easily by myself, and it’s easy to transport.”
Patients can keep the chair as long as they need it, which is typically between six and eight weeks. The Southlake chapter of Young Men’s Service League assists in retrieving the chairs and delivering them back to storage.
A bag containing a blanket, a post-surgery comfort pillow made by Girl Scout Troop 4050 and a post-surgery drain holder are given to the patients. A journal travels with the chair as an extra layer of encouragement.
“People who had the chair write about their [cancer] experiences. Sometimes they give their phone numbers, and it becomes a support group,” Ruth said. “They write that they don't feel alone once they have the Healing Chair because other people have been through this.”
Quote of note
Ruth said she knows her mom would be proud of the work she is doing with The Healing Chair, and she feels successful knowing she has helped people.
She said she feels nervous when all her chairs are deployed, but so far the needs of clients have not gone unmet.
“I say it's a God thing,” Ruth said. “I might have a waitlist, and someone’s surgery is in three weeks, and I don't have a chair. I don't know how it will work out, but it always does.”
Learn more
For more information about The Healing Chair, email [email protected] or visit www.healingchair.org.
