Menopause, Mental-Pause or Overwhelm?

A few weeks back I was definitely feeling stress and probably triggered by what would have been my son’s eighth birthday in addition to my friend JJ Virgin nearly losing her son Grant who is now making a miraculous recovery.

I began to worry about my children, my 24 year old who occasionally has seizures and who lives very far away from me in Maui (about as far as you can get from little Saint Simons Island!), my daughter Amanda who is now driving at 16, my daughter Amira who has begun private tutoring at my suggestion and my four year old Ava who every night changes and develops.

I often worried about my 86 year old father who seems to be getting close to his age for the first time ever! Seeing a different doctor every week, and not feeling good and not walking. And my cousin Grace who lives in Texas who is as much a sister to me as my mother was to her sister, was at doctor after doctor and felt that she was dying. She flew here to me as her last hope.

It seemed that with the family I love and care about struggling and years of me lovingly giving as much if not more to my patients than even they wanted for themselves, promoting and advocating optimal health for each and every one of the patients I see and those that come through the practice.

In addition to my mission of spreading hope and inspiration to women worldwide, reinforcing the awareness that they should not just settle for fatigue, fat and foggy brains. I was working nonstop getting three to five hours of sleep (something I would never allow a patient to do). And really cycling into a period of overwhelm. Now, top that with switching to a less than satisfactory, although Medicare Compliant, electronic medical record which felt almost, forced upon me and decreases my eye-to-eye contact with my patients. It has numerous problems! I have hired an external billing company to resolve any previous billing issues and handle all of our billing moving forward.

Also there is an insurance company who has penalized me for nutritional testing and now states that giving B-12 injections for anything other than pernicious anemia is absolutely not a covered benefit for my patients and informs me that I could be penalized for this. This is like saying only give vitamin C if you have scurvy! How absurd is the medical environment in which we are trying to heal people?

There is no surprise that there is a public cry that the medical system is not working well; it is not for the lack of the physician not wanting to heal you! The insurance and the regulations, the constant paperwork and pressure seems to make it impossible for my colleagues and I, and for our patients to get medical care. I will give you an example of a patient who came to our practice, in a situation where we would have billed approximately $200.00 in medical labs they were billed $500.00 by their insurance company’s laboratory. This situation and those that are similar are really adding to the overwhelm of medical practices. There is no wonder that practices have become hospital based practices.

At the beginning of the month, I knew it was time to care of myself and my family the way we needed to be. As a result I had to step back from my practice, take some time off and spend time healing, enjoying, loving and nurturing all of us. It is good to tell you Dad is feeling amazing! He was very happy to have lost 19 pounds in the three weeks he has been here and he is feeling so much better walking, laughing, telling stories and not to mention playing internet poker. My cousin Grace is doing much better, getting to the underlying issues, and doing a series of IV vitamin therapies. She has also spoiled with us with her amazing Mediterranean cooking.

I am thankful for all of this! Earlier this month we were at my brothers and Ava and I had an incredible discussion after visiting Arlington Cemetery where my mother who passed away twelve years ago is buried. That night Ava asked, “Did Teta (that is what we call grandmother) die?” I explained yes she is in heaven. She asked did Garrett die? Oh my God! How that went right into my heart in so many levels, I thought to myself how do I explain this to a four year old?

I have always hated the word “Die” (and diet as a matter of fact). So I said he has been delivered into eternity and divined into eternity. And love never dies; love is always with us and always around us. However, Ava was just crying, a heartfelt deep cry and she was saying “I miss my brother Garret and I miss Teta!” I could only fathom how my daughter who physically knew neither of them in the flesh could possibly know them on a spiritual level? She may have been mirroring my sorrow and my grief over this tender subject during this tender moment, nonetheless, it drew me closer to my sweet daughter Ava.

It has been a transformational month and when people ask me how I am doing I say that I am cocooning. Last week Amanda my 16 year old wrote me the most beautiful love note, thanking me, acknowledging me and cherishing me. I cried for hours. It was something that I did not expected because we have been butting heads for quite a while, however it has so nourished me and our relationship is more and more beautiful every day.

So I want to say to you, all of you, while there are times when we have period of overwhelm prioritize the time you have to spend. I apologize wholeheartedly to the patients I have not been able to see in the office. But I am leaving them in the hands of the very capable Libby Carter who is an amazing nurse practitioner and has been with me for over three years; and our new addition Elizabeth Powell who is an amazing provider. I am available for phone consultations. Again, thank you for understanding that my family, from ages 4 to 86 has my full attention at this time.

I look forward to seeing you all soon on many levels

As always wishing you a Vida Pura!