Forks Over Knives Series – Intro

It’s supposed to be the “happiest place on earth” but I just wasn’t FEELING it!  Disney World was NOT to blame on this October 2000 family vacation with Shawn and our 3 children. I just wasn’t feeling WELL!

Yet, I did what every mother I know would do.  I assumed it was normal to feel this way.  Every working mother with 3 young children surely feels excessive fatigue, discomfort, light-headedness and general malaise.  Right?  We just keep going.  We keep taking care of everyone else and assume we will simply rally the strength and ‘carry on.’  But this day was different and it catapulted me into a journey of personal wellness and healing that has never stopped.  This passion for wellness has grown and developed to this day and I am confident it will continue for the rest of my days.

We were in Animal Kingdom when I passed out.  The staff at Disney World was simply amazing in their care for me.  They transported me to First Aid where I received IV fluids, then back to our hotel where they checked on me every hour.  We returned to Paducah and I was admitted to the hospital with Acute Pancreatitis.  Unbeknownst to us, over the previous few years gall stones had been obstructing and scarring my pancreatic duct leading to this acute episode of pancreatitis.  While allowing the pancreas to calm down and waiting for my procedure to re-open that duct, I had to follow a very rigid diet to prevent extreme pain and discomfort.  Three months later as I was healing from surgery, I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease.

The foregoing events began a stewardship of my health as I learned to eat to live (pain-free).  I desired health and vitality for myself, my family, and my staff and patients at WellSprings.  As a medical student I was not taught much about nutrition, so I began a beautiful, eye-opening study of using food as medicine and making daily choices to fuel my body with foods that heal and provide the nourishment my organs and brain need.

I have grown to LOVE the power of knowing how food choices impact health for me and my patients.

Medical research is embracing this as well, with a new study in literature every week.  We are discovering that food impacts:
-inflammation in our skin, influencing skin diseases such as psoriasis, eczema, acne, lupus
-our immune system response to fight off or promote cancer cells lurking in the body
-boosts or impairs our ability to fight infections
-the aging of our bodies, including dementia/Alzheimer’s
-the glucose/insulin cycle, increasing or decreasing risk of diabetes

Committed to staying on the cutting edge of this research, Shawn and I, along with Amy Joyce, my wellness coordinator at WellSprings, attended the Plantrician Conference on Whole Food Plant Based Healthcare in Oakland, California last September.​

This conference, as well as the Netflix documentary Forks Over Knives, prompted the following personal choices:

• I eat Whole Food Plant Based – avoiding dairy, animal products and as much processed foods as possible.
• I drink mostly water and hot tea, avoiding all sodas.
• I avoid all artificial sweeteners.
• I take Juice Plus and have become a distributor, working with this company. Studies have shown that we need 9-17 servings of a variety of fruits and vegetables every day to optimize health and prevent disease. With arthritis, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity and cancer at all time high incidence in the US, these daily capsules flood my body with over 30 servings of fruits and vegetables every day, assuring my body’s best chance for optimal health. 
• For more information, click: http://dremjones.juiceplus.com/

To help MYSELF, my WS family and patients, I will be blogging my journey through this 12 week course.
  Hope you’ll follow and ENJOY!!