Sherlock TruHealth

         My Story

 

I became very interested in heart health after losing my father to a sudden heart attack. It was devasting for my close family to have our dad here

one day and gone the next. He had been a 3-pack a day chain smoker for many years; it seemed unless he was eating or sleeping, he was

smoking. Then, during a short period in his 60's, he experienced the loss of three men close to him, a couple fishing buddies and a brother-in-law.

To make a long story short, he quit smoking COLD TURKEY! To quit, he was hypnotized, and I can tell you if it hadn't been my own father, I would

have never believed it would work. He was very addicted to tobacco, but he went from smoking 3 packs a day to none! We were so proud of him.

This one brave and determined decision by my father gave us another 17 years with him. He had been winded by just crossing the room, and after

he quit, he could breathe more easily. He was on oxygen for his last few years. It bothered him when he could no longer be as active as he

wished. But he quit smoking, and only by doing that did our children get to have a close relationship to him for about 11 years.   

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Sometime after he passed, and while I was still grieving, I came across a CNN Sanjay Gupta special called, "The Last Heart Attack."  The premise

of the show was that nearly all the heart disease we have in this country is preventable with lifestyle. All the stents, all the heart attacks, bypass

surgeries, stents, and all cardiac deaths like my father's.  All the expense and the impact to loved ones are to a large extent due to the foods we eat.

It was my first look at the Standard American Diet (SAD), heavy in meat and dairy and all of its fat and cholesterol, as a factor responsible for most

heart disease. This included not just fried foods, junk foods and processed foods, but animal foods. I quit eating meat that very day. Soon after I

gave up dairy, eggs and fish, basically all animal foods. The CNN special introduced me to the nutritional heroes I still admire and follow today.

Those heroes include Dr. Cardwell Esselstyn, Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Michael Gregor, and Dr. Dean Ornish. I went plant-based

while feeding my family fairly standard diets. I knew this was not something I could force on anyone. I started reading everything I could on this

topic, watched the documentary Forks Over Knives and others, devoured books by these and other doctors, and reviewed some of the vast research supporting their claims that the more fully people move to a whole foods, plant-based diet, the better their immediate and long-term health.  

 

Two years after losing my dad, after a beautiful post-Christmas week with my husband's close family, my father-in-law went into the hospital and

was also gone within 24 hours. He had very similar health to my dad's; bad heart and lungs. He had a case of pneumonia before Christmas and

apparently had not fully recovered. He basically died of sepsis. Another devastating and sudden loss that really ripped the rug out from under us

again. I was still studying about the benefits of a plant-based diet, learning together with a couple other friends who were eating the same way,

and spending most of my leisure reading time digging into medical studies in the most prestigious medical and research journals. 

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Fast forward another two years. This time it was my mom. We were traveling home from a family vacation in Yellowstone and Grand Tetons. In the

car, I was reading Dr. Esselstyn's book, "Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease." I was literally thinking of how I could encourage my mom to eat

better.  You see, after two years of mourning my father's passing, she made a decision that she was going to live the rest of her life enjoying her

kids and grandkids. And she did. She was so much fun! She went parasailing and on hayrack rides with her grandkids. She was always thrilled to

be asked to go anywhere like a Broadway show or shopping outing. My sister called while I was reading that book, and through her tears, I

learned my mom was in the hospital, but was still alive and it was something to do with her heart. We were four hours from home. The way I tried

to cope with that long ride home was to read Dr. Esselstyn's book aloud.

 

While visiting her sister a couple hours away, my mom's aorta burst. This is what John Ritter of Three's Company died from. Most people don't

even make it to the hospital, but my mother, being of strong German stock and raised on the farm, did survive the surgery. However, there had

been a lot of damage and her organs never recovered. She left us within two days. After losing three out of our four parents, my husband said he

would join me in a whole foods plant-based lifestyle.

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Losing both my parents to heart events set me on a path to research the healthiest diet for preventing heart disease. But what I learned is that eating

for heart health also provided prevention of most other chronic diseases, or at least dramatically reduces risk. Everything I do is in memory of my

parents and father-in-law, and for our kids.

 

It is commonly estimated that at 75% - 85% of our healthcare costs are for preventable, chronic disease. In this country, there are many amazing

things about our medical system, especially for acute care. But we are not good at prevention, we take pills to treat symptoms rather than the true

causes of disease. People get sick and stay sick; they stay on medication for the rest of their lives. We are now living shorter lives and living many

years in illness. I do have a desire to live a long full life, but only if my body and mind are healthy. I want to thrive into old age, to stay active,

to have energy and vitality. And, I have a passion to have some small part in turning around the health care situation in this country, one person at

a time. Over the past almost ten years, I’ve continued my education in Lifestyle Medicine and gotten more involved:  

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