Honduras Day one July 11, 2011

Honduras 2011
Mission Lazuras and Crosspoint Community Church


Day One: July 11, 2011

Our team over 30 arrived yesterday after a 4 hour bus ride from the airport in Tegucigalpa. As we were pulling into our ranch in San Marcos that is owned by Mission Lazuras we had a flat tire! So we entered the ranch by walking the rest of the way! What a beautiful location we are staying at. I was expecting something like Haiti last year. The pasada (lodge) is the center or our ranch and where we eat our meals, gather to talk, hang in the hammock, have devotionals and can connect to the internet. Our cabins hold ten and have hot showers and a toilet that flushes!! I am thrilled! It is the rainy season here and currently the tin roof is alive with the sound of pouring rain and thunder!
Our clinic is in Duyure and is a 1-1 ½ hour school bus ride up to the top of the mountain. The roads are hairpin turns and I learned quickly to NOT look down! Our lives are in the hands of our driver who is not only navigating the narrow road, but attempting not to hit any number of cows or donkeys that are in the road.
When we arrived today at the makeshift clinic there were probably already 200 villagers waiting for hours and most had walked for at least 2 hours to see us. By the time our day was ending some patients had waited 10 hours or more to see us. No one was angry, mean or rude. We have 5 providers: 2 NP’s, 2 PA-C’s and one MD. The pharmacy is set up with a formulary that is small, but efficient to treat the kinds of cases we are seeing over and over.
We saw over 250 patients today with various chronic and acute problems. I did get to see one pregnant patient today! She was nine months pregnant, and travels two hours to a hospital for delivery! Maybe this week she will come back in labor and I can deliver a Honduran baby!
The poverty is great here, but the spirit and the pride is even greater. I am impressed with how well kept and clean the children are we saw in the clinic today. We are exhausted and a bit smelly indeed, but the smiles and hugs make it all worth while….and give you the motivation to get up tomorrow and do it all over again!

Heading to Honduras! Sign up to follow the journey with my blog!!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that myself and a medical mission team will be heading to Honduras on Sunday for 7 days in the mountains in San Marcos De Colon. The medical team will be traveling to Duyure each day to set up a clinic in the village.  We expect to see several thousand patients while there.   There will be a construction team  as well going to a different location each day.  I am going with my church www.crosspoint.tv and feel blessed to be able to use my skills in one of the 3 poorest countries in the world.   We will be teamed with www.missionlazuras.com and staying at their ranch in San Marcos Del Colon at night. Please read their website and learn about all of the amazing work they are doing in Honduras and beyond!!

I am asking for your prayers and support while we are gone on this trip. Although this trip will not be as long or as tiring as my 21 days in Haiti last year, it will be challenging non the less.  Please pray for peace, safety and healing during our journey!!

                                                  Last years Haiti Medial Mission Trip

                                        Delivering a sweet baby boy that they named Daniel!

                                          Check back here often to see updates on my journey!

Blessings~

Dani

Deuteronomy 31:6-8

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).

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

Bio-identical Hormone Replacement

Bio-identical Hormone Replacement for:
Fatigue, weight gain, depression, decreased muscle mass, decreased libido, PMS, apathy, erectile dysfunction, hot flushes, vaginal dryness, hair loss, memory loss, mood swings, night sweats, irritable, bone loss, thin skin.

Do you just not feel as good as you believe you should? You simply don’t have that “get up and go” that you had a few years ago? Have you gained weight (especially around the middle), lost your desire for sex, feel more fatigued, have interrupted sleep, feel anxious or short tempered more than you used to, don’t handle stress as well as you are used to handling? These are all signs of hormonal imbalance. Hormones can be imbalanced during birth control pill use (synthetic hormones in birth control pills can cause hormone imbalance) peri-menopause (anywhere from 2 or more years before menopause), menopause (12 months without a menstrual cycle), and for the men simply aging as well can cause hormone imbalance (3). I have treated several teenage girls with bio-identical low dose progesterone 2 weeks out of the month pulsed with there menstrual cycle and had great results with balancing their PMS symptoms.
As women age our ovaries become less active and we produce less estrogen. During this aging process progesterone also declines. Since the majority of the symptoms of menopause are related to declining hormone levels, doesn’t it make since to replace those hormones with bio-identical hormones derived from plant sources? These hormones have the identical molecular make-up as our endogenous estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone. The synthetic hormone Premarin is an estrogen made from pregnant mare’s urine!! PRE-MAR-IN….I may not be a doctor, but I am certain that pregnant mare’s urine is NOT bio-identical to humans, although it may be just what the veterinarian ordered for a horse going though menopause! Studies have shown that women have and increase in breast cancer when using high doses of synthetic estrogens. (3). Bio-identical hormones are dosed on an individual basis (there are no “one size fits all” dosing), and therefore the patient receives physiological versus super physiological doses of the hormones needed. The bio-identical hormones I prescribe are 10-20 times lower in strength than the estrogens in birth control pills!
Using Bio-identical hormone replacement with cream, pills or pellets will relieve the symptoms of peri-menopause, menopause, PMS greatly. Bio-identicals have been proven to reduce the risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, memory loss and cancer (2, 3).
And for the men, bio-identical testosterone can increase libido, help with erectile dysfunction, increase muscle mass, stronger bones, improve energy (3, 4). All from either testosterone cream, gel or pellets placed under the skin to dissolve over 3-4 months. I use tesosterone in women with great results. And can personally attest to the testosterone pellets!
I have had incredible response with bio-identical progesterone in cream or pill form. My patients report more regular cycles, less cramping, shorter cycles, less PMS and an overall feeling of less anxiety. Progesterone is a calming hormone and when we are low on it, it is possible to have more anxiety and less restful sleep. I use creams and capsules for my patients that are compounded at special compounding pharmacies. The creams bypass the first pass effect in the liver and may deliver more active hormone. I prefer to use creams, but if a woman is postmenopausal or having insomnia related to hormone imbalance I may give a capsule to help her sleep at night since progesterone is calming. It also has a mild diuretic effect that women appreciate. I always pulse the dosing with the menstrual cycle or 3 weeks out of the month for post-menopausal women. (1, 3)
DHEA is a precursor to testosterone and estrogen in our bodies. I have had good results if a patient is low in testosterone and DHEA I will begin a low dose DHEA 5-10 mg for women and 25-50 mg for men for a few months to see if testosterone levels increase and low androgen symptoms begin to resolve.
Vitex Chaste berry twice daily has decreased PMS symptoms of agitation, irritable, anxiety, and even increased libido in some of my patients. We use a Metagenics brand that has chaste berry, cohosh, and ashwaghanda in it. And I can speak from experience that PMS symptoms are greatly reduced. I even have one patient that wrote a blog on it in Nashville Parenting magazine after only one month of use. I usually tell patients to give it 3 months to begin to decrease symptoms.
Finding a practitioner that is skilled in BHRT is key to resolving your symptoms. If your practitioner is not willing to work with you then find another one! This is your health and I can attest that as health care providers we are not taught the use of bio-identical hormones, or nutritional medicine at all for that matter! My women’s health class was given a multi page article on the “dangers of bio-identical hormones” and how the practice was basically hocus pocus (I can’t remember the term used). Clearly, the instructor that handed that article out has big pharma in their back pocket. And come to find out, that is true!! There is absolutely nothing wrong with pharmaceuticals if needed, and there isn’t a natural way to get the same and most likely better result! I was once told by an MD in Atlanta, Dr. Eldridge Taylor who wrote the book, “Are your Hormones Making You Sick”, that “Doctors are down on things they are not up on”!! That goes for any healthcare provider!!
Testing is critical to finding out your hormone levels! I prefer ZRT saliva testing. Unfortunately, insurance has made serum blood testing standard of care, and therefore insurance is more likely to pay for serum blood testing. Saliva testing actually tests the true DNA that is in the tissues (that’s why we do saliva DNA tests). I prefer those results, and they run around $299.00 for a complete panel including thyroid with a blood spot finger stick. Insurance is getting better at reimbursing patients for their cost. There are also urine tests that I have not used as of yet.
Getting hormones in balance is much more than testing and ordering up some bio-identical hormones. We have to begin to look at food sensitivities, toxins in our bodies by stating a detox program and eating as organic and “real” food as much as possible. Environmental toxins need to be addressed: the cleaning supplies you use, the makeup we buy, lotions, hair dyes, nail polish, light bulbs they are just a few of the toxic things our body absorbs daily!! And we wonder why there is an epidemic of autoimmune disease! I diagnose at least 5-8 Hashimoto’s patients weekly!! Clean is a fabulous book by Dr. Junger that addresses the toxic world we live in and offers reasonable ways to begin to clean up our bodies that are riddled with toxins and killing us slowly. If you don’t believe me, take a look at any waiting room at any doctor’s office on a daily basis! Look at the people that are barely getting by, all the while drinking those diet cokes, eating that processed food from fast food chains and taking more and more medications that most likely could be greatly decreased by simply putting the nutrients back in their bodies that they have depleted. We are treating symptoms and not the cause of the problem!!
If you are experiencing signs of hormonal imbalance and are interested in testing and treatment then by all means make an appointment and come see us at Cool Springs Family Medicine! I would love to work with your and begin the journey of balancing not only your hormones but your health with our wellness center offering colon hydrotherapy, infrared sauna, hyperbaric treatments, acupuncture as well as a complete supplement store. I used to tell my yoga students at True North Yoga that the hardest part of class is simply SHOWING UP! Not always true with healthcare, but it’s you first step to wellness!

Dani Williamson, MSN, FNP
Integrative Family Medicine
http://www.daniwilliamson.com  












Reference

1. Leonetti HB, et al. transdermal progesterone cream for vasomotor symptoms and postmenopausal bone loss. Obstet Gyecol 1999: 225-228.
2. Lee JR. Osteoporosis reversal with transdermal progesterone. Lancet 1990;336:1327.
3. Wright JV, Lenard L. Stay Young and Sexith Bio-identical Horones: the Science Explained. Smart Publications, Petaluma, California, 2010.
4. Katznelson L, et al. Increase in bone density and lean body mass during testosterone administration in men with acquired hypogonadism. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1996;81:4358-4365.

You Can't Control How You Die....But You Can Control How You Live!

Just an update to let you know that so far my heart is looking good. A tiny bulge in the atrial septum (which could be something I was born with), which is the reason for the "bubble test". I can tell you that as a nurse, you are taught to NEVER push air through a patients veins intentionally....so to watch a nurse (even a seasoned cardiac nurse) push saline/air 3 times in your body while watching for bubbles in the heart is a strange experience!! I still haven't figured out what keeps you from having an embolism! I Will find out the results of that test hopefully Monday (which tells me that if there is a hole, if so, it must not be huge since they let me go home last night)!





But other than that, I seem to be heart healthy!! The EKG was not totally normal, but seems to be an age related change. All in all, it was a scary 24 hours, but I feel certain that I have been checked out well!! Vanderbilt Heart did not let me down (other than when the intake nurse told me to remove my "training bra" and shared that the kind of stress test I was having was the "big one before the heart cath!)!! They took good care of me, and put up with me asking a million questions and wanting to see every picture they were taking! Apparently I nailed the treadmill test! They told me that if I was flying within the next 3 days the radioactive material would show up on the detectors at the airport, so I would need a note! Very comforting that all that work I have done to DETOX my body has now been messed up with radioactive isotopes! Looks like I am back on the DETOX Monday!





Lessons learned:





1. DON'T wait until you think your are having a heart attack (or stroke etc) to find out your family history! It may just be too late to do anything about it at that point. You can't fight genetics!!


2. You ARE what you eat!!! So don't be on your way to the hospital thinking about all of the years you ate processed, fast, not REAL food and wondering if the damage done is too much to reverse!!


3. If you are reading this (doesn't matter how old you are).....MAKE lifestyle changes NOW and take your life back! I am a poster child for believing I am bullet proof and famous for too many years of burning the candle at both ends and thriving on more, more, more!! It will kill, kill, kill you!! I promise!


4. Get out an move!!! Even if you are only walking 10 minutes at a time, do that 2-3 times at least 3-5 days a week and start pumping some blood through your veins!!!


5. Realize that no matter what, ultimately we are not in control of when or where we might take our last breathe! But it IS in our control to live the best, cleanest, most pure life we can while we are given the GIFT of life (and yes, it is a GIFT)!! Kiss/hug/ your kids and anyone your love daily...because you don't know that when you leave the house that morning that you will be returning that evening! (and yes Jackson, I am preaching on death again!)


6. You can't control how you die....but you can control how you LIVE!!!


7. Breathe!!!





I have been telling my patients daily to pick up Dr. Josh Axes new cookbook called : The Real Food Diet ! It is loaded with EDUCATION and amazing REAL FOOD recipes! If you are not familiar with Dr. Axe, I would highly recommend that you find his Facebook page and also sign up for his newsletter! He is a chiropractor in town that is a genius in my opinion on nutrition and living a CLEAN lifestyle. He sends us patients weekly as I do him! Check him out! You won't be sorry! I am making his famous Kale chips today!





Thanks guys for the prayers, calls, texts, emails.....I am doing well! But, you can bet that this encounter with my mortality has opened my eyes and my heart to what it really means to LIVE LIFE....and I intend to do a better job it it......starting NOW!





~Peace,


Dani

Note to Self: Know your family history BEFORE you have a cardiac event!!

Note to Self: Know your family history BEFORE you have a cardiac event!!


I learned first hand yesterday that BEFORE you think you are having an heart attack or you have an EKG that says you have had some sort of cardiac event happen to you it would behoove one to have knowledge of one’s family history. I can speak from experience that the time to find out about major (as in sudden cardiac death) life altering events with one’s ancestors is ideally not when one is driving themselves to the cardiology department at Vanderbilt for a sudden visit with the cardiologist!! I can assure you that if I was going to have 4 hours off yesterday afternoon and all day today off, I would prefer to be doing something other than heart studies!!
I have had a few episodes the past three months of some pretty intense chest pain/pressure and diaphoresis that lasted for several minutes. The first one was on the acupuncture table with Dr. Wu out of the room and I had 60 needles in my face! I thought at one point I was going to have to get up and get help, but eventually the pain subsided. I was visualizing me stumbling into the hall at the office with little children there and me holding my chest with all those needles in my face like Pinhead from Hellraiser! Those parents would be paying therapy bills for years after their kids witnessed that! I had 2 more incidents like that and the last one was yesterday morning.
As usual our day was busy, busy, busy at the office. But eventually I got my nurse to do an EKG on me. Words can’t describe Dr. Kalb’s face when I asked him to read the EKG for me, and when he was told it was mine. He immediately had Maggie redo it thinking that the leads must have been switched. Same results, different nurse. I had a new patient waiting to be seen, and as we all know….hormones trump cardiac events in a time like this! When the patient ask me how I was doing I thought it best that I not tell her “I think I’ve had a heart attack recently and all hell is breaking lose outside this door”, instead I smiled and said “great, and you?” Dr. Kalb proceeds to tell me in his diplomatic way after I saw the patient that “it seems you have had one major or a few minor heart attacks at some point.”. What the heck? Apparently as I was meeting the new patient he was on the phone with cardiology and when I came out of the room he had an appointment for me to get to Vandy stat! I am driving down the road with my EKG that says something about at a left anterior block etc…..and wondering who the heck will get my kids after school!
Decided to quickly call my parents to get a family history, since I had never really thought much about it in my 45 years of life. First shocker and cause for 2 more cardiac events in my heart was that my maternal grandfather was the 13th person in the US to have open heart surgery here in Nashville, and both of his brothers (my uncles) died suddenly of cardiac arrest before the age of 49! My sweet mother says, didn’t you know that he died “in the middle of Kentucky Fried Chicken delivering milk”…well hell no I didn’t know anyone died of cardiac arrest, much less 2 uncles! My mother does have pretty severe mitral valve prolapse as well (which I was aware of). My father proceeds tell me that his father died at the age of 49 in the backseat of the car as grandmother was driving on vacation of a sudden cardiac arrest! None of these relatives had any idea they had heart problems!!! For crying out loud….here I am driving on I65 to get to Vandy and suddenly find out that I have 5 relatives (and not distant ones at that) and 3 of them had no warning at all, with heart problems!
I was in the exam room within 5 minutes of walking into the cardiology department….divine intervention indeed! Dr. Irani was impressed with my family history (his words, not mine). He is impressed and I am horrified! He said that with a history like that I automatically have 3 risks factors for heart disease no matter what my EKG says. My repeat EKG shows some sort of event, but not as bad as the one at the office showed! Praise God, but he did send me for an ECHO and told me we would either be going directly to have a heart cath or have a nuclear stress test today. Thank God, I am off to have a stress test and not the cath! Besides, I argued with him that I would prefer to have the cath in the daytime when the doctor and staff are fresh and not in the evening when everyone is tired! He wasn’t amused and let me know that I was not in charge of when or if I get the cath!
Moral of this story is that it’s a good idea to have a good family history for all disease!! Not just heart disease….the time to find out your family is riddled with sudden cardiac events is not when you are on your way to the cardiologist!!
The kicker to this is that I am healthier now than I have ever been! I have been detoxifying my life and body for the past year. Working on my adrenal glands and hormones as well as well training for the ½ marathon. My life has been focused on my children, my God and my health since getting out of school and burning the candle at both ends for way too many years! My hope is that it’s not too late to reverse whatever is going on! But in case it is, I am getting a mani/pedi today and my house is clean…just in case! All joking aside, when it’s time to go, doesn’t matter if your toenails are painted or your toilet is clean….when it’s time it’s time! Better be ready!!

PS: I got a new patient yesterday while waiting to see the cardiologist! Dr. Irani’s nurse asked for my card and is making an appointment! Whoohoo!!