Sunday, June 26, 2011

Gloria's Testimony on her healing journey at Cool Springs Family Medicine

TESTIMONY of GLORIA

Over the years I have found by veering away from traditional medicine
and prescription drugs, I would become much healthier. A search to find doctors
who treat you holistic and alternatively before resorting to traditional
medicine is very difficult to find.

Recently I found myself getting more and more depressed about aging and dreaded getting older. I began seeing my body looking old and I was loosing the
high energy that I had always had. I have been blessed with outstanding
good health all my life because I always tried to take good care of my
body. So believe me, I was beginning to feel hopeless and puzzled by
what was happening to my body.

The search was on when I found Cool Springs Family Medicine.

At Cool Springs Family Medicine, I was treated like I was very important
and cared for by all the staff. Dani Williamson, nurse practitioner, did some very extensive blood test and quickly found my problems. I was so thankful
and I began to have hope again.

One of the tests that Dani did was to test my Thyroid Antibodies. No other doctor had tested it because my Thyroid Panel had always been normal. I was shocked to discover that I had Hashimoto’s disease. The level was 1490.3 and normal
Is 60. Everything I have read about Hassimoto’s disease is that there is
nothing you can do about it. The only thing is wait under the antibodies destroy you thyroid and then you start taking hormone pills. Well, I knew in my heart
that that would NOT be my fate! Also I knew that once you begin taking thyroid medicine, then your thyroid completely stops making the hormones.

Right away Dani put me on some vitamins that support the thyroid and that settle the antibodies down. She also told me to start on a Gluten Free Diet. There is a book that was just printed that she recommended I read and would give me hope also: Hope for Hashimoto’s by Dr. Alexander Haskell, N.D.

After three months, Dani did another blood test and the Thyroid Antibodies was
Down 540 points to 950.3 from 1490.3! I was beyond excited and so happy. I knew Dani and Cool Springs Family Medicine was a God sent.

Having gone through menopause about 15 years ago, my hormone levels
were depleted; which explained my lack of interest in sex, dry vagina,
lack of energy, lack of enthusiasm for life, my skin looking wrinkled and
saggy in a lot of places on my body.

Dani suggested I do the Testosterone Pellets that could be inserted under
my skin and would last for 3 months. Since my testosterone level was
zero, I was anxious to receive this treatment. She also subscribed Progesterone Troches that I would let dissolved in my mouth at bedtime.

Within a week, I began to feel better, my endurance level was coming back and I began to feel younger and like a woman again. Within two weeks, my sex drive was back and I was feeling that desire I used to have for my husband. Believe me, he was very happy about that because he wasn’t feeling rejected by me anymore!

Another thing I was seeing was that when I would go work out, my trainer was amazed because I was getting stronger and she was able to add more weights to my workout. I was feeling a lot stronger during the spinning classes too.

I cannot believe the difference in my health and life now. I will continue to
work until I get my Thyroid Antibodies down to normal and I will continue to
get the testosterone pellet inserts regularly and continue with the progesterone troches.

Thank you Cool Springs Family Medicine and Dani Williamson for giving me
my life back. (My husband thanks you too).

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Two Deaths in One Week: Life and Love

The DEATH of LIFE and LOVE
Webster’s dictionary defines death as “a permanent cessation of all vital functions or the passing or destruction of something”….precisely what I experienced this week with the death of MeeMaw Smith and of my very own 6 year love (affair): both deaths occurred within hours of each other. One was rather sudden the other had been hanging on for dear life while praying for a miracle of sorts for several years (the miracle came in the form of a letter). It’s true that when it rains it pours indeed. The synonyms for death such as curtains, decease, demise, dissolution, end , exit, expiration, expiry fate, grave, great divide, passage, passing quietus, sleep I have decided all are fitting for the loss life or love.
As I sat at the funeral today thinking about my own loss this week I commented “I have had a really bad week Ella Kate” I was reminded not so gently by my 13 year old daughter that “your week has not been nearly as bad as PeePaw’s mom”! Out of the mouths of babes one can always expect to be slapped back into reality. Gosh no, my week had been nothing like PeePaw Smith’s who lost the love of his life that he was married to for over 60 years! His world revolved around MeeMaw and he took care of her to the very end of her life with such grace and dignity that it amazes and inspires me! He never complained, never acted ugly or acted like he was tired of the constant work that an outspoken woman like MeeMaw required. He married his best friend and dedicated his life to making her happy. For better or for worse.
I was sent a letter this week written to someone other than me that devastated me yet ironically describes the love that MeeMaw and PeePaw Smith had, and what I and everyone I know must long for in a partner. It stated that he had always been told that “a man should marry his best friend and only then would all the pieces of the puzzle fit and the good times would be twice as good and the bad half as bad”. Devastating words to read (since they weren’t written to me or about me or apparently for me to ever read) yet no truer words have ever been written. What he wrote and desires to have with another woman other than me is exactly what the Smith’s shared. They were never “wandering around searching for something they (I) let go, because they never let go of each other in the first place. They built their “castle in the sand together” as he so beautifully wrote and I am fairly certain that even though it may have been washed away a few times during the years, they kept on rebuilding “together”……as the letter read.
I can’t imagine what PeePaw was feeling today as he looked at his best friend and bride of many years for the last time on this earth. I can only say that it broke my heart imagining what he will feel like in that house without her in it. I am sure their life was not perfect by any means, but love overcame any obstacle they ran up against. I want and deserve that kind of love (as does everyone), with a man that adores me enough to forsake all others and treat me the way God intended a man to treat a woman as well as how he would want his very own daughter to be treated by her boyfriend/lover/husband.
I could get married tonight and most likely never be married 40, 50 much less 60+ years to my best friend, lover, husband that adores the ground I walk on while making the “good times twice as good, and the bad half as bad”…. I decided tonight on the drive home from Kentucky that although 50 or more years of marriage are probably out of the picture for me, true, committed, honest love is not. And just like MeeMaw and PeePaw Smith, I plan on holding out for that kind of love in the future! Simply because I deserve it!

the LORD giveth, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
Job 1:21

Integrative Family Medicine