Testimonials

My childhood memories consist mostly of being sick. Things didn’t improve as I aged. By the time I was nineteen, life had come to a crashing halt. I had college debt, an unfinished degree, a host of new medical diagnoses to add to my notebook full of ones I’d already gotten, and more medications to add to my growing collection of “shoved at me but doesn’t work” prescriptions. I was 5 ft 11 inches, 103 pounds, malnourished to the core, in horrific physical pain, GI issues out the wazoo, and no understanding of what was causing all the physical problems. I did have though a wonderful physical therapist who committed to working with me.

The next 25 years was a journey of anything that remotely promised hope in the desperate dream of getting better. My life was a living hell of barely existing physically. Through a series of wild events, in my mid 40’s, with my sister, best friend, and family by my side and my physical and occupational therapist cheering me on, I found myself walking through the main doors of the Mayo Clinic in Florida. I went through a grueling period of tests, visits with multiple departments and found relief in that they were able to figure out that the diagnoses I had were wrong. At Mayo, I finally had folks who seemed willing to listen to me and better educate me. I tasted hope and wanted more so I pushed for answers to the root of my debilitating physical problems.

The benefit of Mayo was not only the speech therapist I met there but also the dietitian, Lisa, who changed my life. She held true to the promise of my belief that I could get better. She asked me to partner with her and embark on a journey that, while hard, could, over time, have potential. I jumped in. I kept food logs, which she analyzed and gave weekly feedback on. Through this we developed a relationship of trust and belief that our hard work would pay off. Based on the information received through food logs and my medical history and testing, Lisa developed an individualized elimination diet based on my needs as a trial with additional nutritional support. This included being strict gluten free and removing latex cross-reactive foods. Fat malabsorption came up on past functional testing and was present on conventional testing. I was muscle biopsied which showed severe muscle wasting and malnutrition. The next step was testing for Celiac disease that involved more than just the blood work testing. It involved eating gluten for 6 weeks then having biopsies done. After only one day of eating gluten, I found myself in a local ER with a swollen liver. I refused to continue with the Celiac testing. Lisa worked with me anyways. I did the elemental diet under her guidance and treated everything as though I was Celiac. She taught me how to be gluten free on a whole new level. In the food log data I daily kept, she also discovered I was reacting to latex cross-reactive foods. We eliminated the latex cross-reactive foods from my diet in addition to being strict gluten free. While on the elimination diet, I began to see lasting physical improvement. However, it wasn’t enough to help me restore my weight. In this journey as I started getting well I also got engaged and Lisa worked with my fiancé to get me the medication I needed for fat malabsorption. I started gaining weight for the first time every day and ultimately by the pound versus the ounce. Every day became this new journey of what it meant to experience life feeling a bit better. Lisa was constantly asking me for feedback, how I felt, if I felt “normal”. We would both laugh over that comment as I didn’t know what “normal” was physically but when I would describe things starting to happen, she would gleefully shout “that’s normalcy! You are finally physically feeling the beginnings of ‘normal’ regarding (whatever we were discussing which ranged from GI issues to skin sores to eye spots to you name it)!”. I was growing younger as I aged. I remember the day I hit my goal of 130 pounds. I called her and cried. I had wanted to make it to 130 pounds because if I could make it to that, then I knew I would keep gaining weight and had a shot at lasting health which could provide a physical life worth living. In response, she smiled that Lisa smile and firmly said “okay!”.

Today, I am 140 pounds and I have graduated from Lisa’s care. With the other doctors, I was stuck forever seeing them, never getting lasting relief. She, out of everyone I ever went to which included the Mayo doctors, was the one who stayed with me and worked to unpack the puzzle of all my medical mysteries by keeping and following the data. In a nutshell, the suspected Celiac disease weakened my body and I just packed on other physical issues ranging from fat malabsorption, SIBO, wasted muscles, IBS, TMJ, chronic diarrhea & constipation, skin sores, eczema, dizziness, chronic fatigue, ears ringing, Candida, and mis-diagnoses such as Raynauds disease, FSH muscular dystrophy and the list could go on for a full page. Today, I am a healthy and happy 48-year-old woman leading a life that gets fuller with each new day. I wake up looking forward to the day versus cursing that I’m still alive as waking up used to mean another day of physical hell. I look back on the time Lisa & I worked together and while it was challenging, she stayed faithful to coach, mentor, guide me and dig for answers. I had to put in tremendous effort but it was so worth it. Lisa’s commitment to her profession, her willingness to partner with my physical and occupational therapist as well as my local doctor, her vision & dedication to her patients, her curiosity to understand, her drive to find answers and her refusal to settle for “good enough” or “Medicine is just a mystery sometimes” is the reason why I thrived under her care. Without hesitation, I would encourage you to commit to working with her, staying the course, doing whatever it takes until your physical dream also comes to life.