A Fresh Start for My Health

 It's that time of year again when my gut is disturbed and my life turns into lots of time on the couch feeling yucky and missing out on life. I have been following some new people on social medial over the last several months and seen Red River clinic mentioned many times. They did free consultations so I decided why not. I went to the first consult with just Liam and I . I have never had a dr ask so many questions about my health and my history. I felt seen and heard for the first time in a long time. I left with orders for more labs than I have ever had drawn before. If I chose to have them drawn for $200 I could come back and have them go over everything and decode all the labs for me. Matt and I both decided it would be well worth it. So 2 weeks later I went back for a 2nd visit. I was surprised by some of the results. I felt like my ulcerative colitis was my only problem. I quickly found out that wasn't the case. The labs showed I had high cholesterol, prediabetic, anemic(critically low iron), and had hypothyroid. Initially it was overwhelming but Dr. Stadler felt like he would be able to help me. So where we went from there is I had another meeting but this time Matt came and we went over the care plans, he explained everything to Matt and we went over costs. We felt like that is what we should do and move forward with the care plan. So we bit the bullet and purchased the $4000 care plan. It really is unfortunate that insurance doesn't recognize clinics like this because it could make people quality of life so much better. After the appointment I took the kids to the park behind the clinic and it was a fun place.

This was the first steps to the care plan and quite possibly the hardest. The diet changes were the first thing while we waited for the rest of the blood work came back. After we decided on the care plan it included a blood allergy test. I have been skin prick allergy tested but never blood.  It can take 10-14 days so this is where I started. It was met with anxiety denial, anger, frustration, gratitude, sadness, pretty much all the things. But ready or not here we go. The care plan will cover 6 months of visits and I'm excited to see how it goes.