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Lena's
Health Nightmares

Lena Sanchez
Photo
by West Photography, Prescott, AZ 2000
Lena's
life includes a fulfilling, exciting nursing career as well as opening and growing
new medical practices, teaching Medical Office Procedures &
Medical Assisting and then becoming an alternative health
advocate and entrepreneur while raising a family of four.
70 years
of life makes for a long story but we will attempt to make it as
short as possible. To get a more detailed story and follow her
life experiences to discover the things she knows that you
probably don't know, but should, before seeing your doctor,
read her book, "Dangers
& Secrets Doctors Refuse To Tell You." Or to
learn about her knowledge of herbs and how they have created a healthy life for
her and her family & friends get her latest book "Handbook
Of Herbs To Health & Other Secrets."
A
mother of two sons, two daughters, 11 grandchildren and 3
great-grandsons all making for a very full life. But she managed
to intertwine a career that many can only dream of. Her career
came to be when at the age of 39 her husbands' horrific accident left him
with both wrists shattered and depleted wrist movements for life
leaving her
feeling desperation at the possibility of being left to care
for her family and no immediate job experience, she went back to
school to get her nursing degree.
The oldest of 9 girls and
1 boy. Lena graduated high school at the age of sixteen, and won a scholarship to a teachers college. That
dream was not to be fulfilled for several years as her father
felt college was a waste for girls who he felt would simply get
married and have a family, not requiring an education. He
therefore refused to allow her to fulfill the scholarship and
her dream of teaching. He enrolled her in a Secretarial
College, which was not her interest and she dropped out shortly
before graduation.
Married at the age of 21 and
immediately started a family fulfilling her father's prophecy.
After the birth of her 4th child at the age of 23 she was overwhelmed with pain
all over the body, which began a search for relief from it, but
never quite hitting the mark. She suffered multiple side effects to medications
given her by doctors trying to help. She says she learned to live every day in pain and
searching for answers that at that time in medicine had no
answers for her. She was told she was emotional and the pain was
in her head but given medications that were totally detrimental
to the problem.
Over the years she took college
courses here and there but never received a degree so at the age
of 37 she went back to college full time with the blessing of
her husband and children, to complete her degree, which started a long medical career at
the age of 39.
A career that she says, "I will always cherish and
thoroughly enjoyed."
Finding her niche in life...
After receiving her Masters in
business, and
a nursing degree in 1976 she went to work in a hospital rehab ward,
which she left, as the hours were too conflicting with home
life and four children. She then went to work as a temporary medical
office nurse and surgical assistant for a General Practitioner
who she felt needlessly put peoples lives at risk every day.
Left at the end of her temporary assignment and went to a
Pediatric Medical Clinic with nine pediatricians where she
worked as back office and triage nurse for three and one-half
years.
Five
years after getting her degrees found her very ill, wracked with
pain and off work for nine
months and misdiagnosed numerous times along that trek. She
became frustrated during those years of doctors visits,
misdiagnoses, hospitalizations and medications that did some
horrible things to her, physically and emotionally. And to
be there again with weeks of being inability to get out of bed , but
that too passed... All this before she allowed nutrition and
alternative medicine to enter her life.
After 25 years of
pain and suffering she was finally diagnosed with Fibromyositis,
now known as fibromyalgia, aka myositis and myalgia accompanied by
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which are all autoimmune disorders and
basically the same thing! (The body's immune system attacking
itself, so the traditional medical world says.)
In those early years of her
suffering painful fibromyalgia attacks it was almost never diagnosed or
even considered a disease by most doctors.
A condition, at that time in which a person with those
aches and pains was generally given the diagnoses of malingerer
or hypochondriac. Lena even saw a psychiatrist for a while, as
she was sure that she was mentally ill, but was told otherwise
by the psychiatrist.
Given medication after
medication that relieved nothing but presented side effect after side
effect for her. Then along with the fibromyalgia she developed
osteoarthritis. She says she soon learned to live with the
excruciating pain and fatigue that accompanied it and finally
settled on a couple of mediations that helped some but didnt
alleviate the pains nor prevented it from progressing. Then she
developed nodules on the joints of her fingers to add to the
pain and doctors visits! All the while losing her eyesight
from congenital cataracts.
She states, "Keeping busy
is a great alleviator of pain for me. I'm not telling you
this to say, hey look at me but to help you understand that I do
know a few doctors in multiple practices as both a patient, an
employee and a co-worker."
After leaving the
pediatric medical group and gaining a little control over the
pain and dizziness she then worked seven and one-half
years as an internists' back office, triage and home visiting
nurse as well as office administrator. During that perioid
making visits to patients
homes who were too ill to come into the office and advising the
doctor of the necessary treatment plan, medication or
hospitalization. At this period of time she began learning more about
home remedies and herbal medicine and sometimes passing on what
she learned to a patient. In passing on alternatives to
patients with the statement, "This is not recommended by the
doctor and if you tell him I will be fired!" That internist was and is a
truly great genius, whom she felt gave the
patients the best that medicine had to offer and still feels
that way about him. Even though she occasionally came to a bit
of odds with him as he was steeped in the traditional medical
syndrome and failed to look at natural or herbal remedies as an
alternative, he did his very best for the patient with what he
had been taught.
At
the ripe old age of 39 the internist decided to leave private
practice as he saw what medicine was becoming with the HMO's
coming into play and said he wanted no part of it. That
prediction has proven to be accurate!
Lena says,
"About
75% to 80% of the patients she encountered over the years were
simple problems that could have been treated at home with
everyday common sense, applying their brain and could have
created
better health for themselves. This," she says,
"was confirmed by several doctors over the years."
Lena wants to make it clear
here that she is not anti-establishment and that she does believe
doctors are a necessity. It's just that after
twenty plus years of experience with patients, she believes that
people are too willing to run to the doctor for every little
ache and pain while refusing to take responsibility for their
health, putting themselves into great danger! The drug
industry educates the doctors to the use of chemical medications
that are most always detrimental to the health of those taking
them.
While managing the brilliant
Internists' office, one of her vivid memories she says is of helping
track & document patient studies on a couple of medications
before their release to the public for pharmaceutical companies
- She received all kinds of great expensive perks for it. You can
find out why she feels one of those medications that is on the
market should not
have been released to the public in her book "Dangers
and Secrets Doctors Refuse to Tell You." Also she
reveals in her book other atrocities that should not happen to
anyone, but did.
Lena's feeling
that testing is inadequate and a prescription isn't always best
for a patient's problem and was confirmed in 2000,
when information released to the public says other doctors
offices, who did drug testing, falsified tests and created
non-existent patient histories. She asks, "How safe
can you feel taking a drug now?" She is very skeptical of
prescriptions and she feels, and statistical history backs
up her feelings, that the true side affects of most
prescriptions will not be known for 20 to 30 years after
release to the public and hundreds or thousands of human beings
will have used them and many will die or have serious illnesses
because of them. So she stresses, "Make sure the illnesses
is dire enough to actually require a prescription, as one is not
always necessary to heal or prevent the illness. Our bodies can
heal themselves when given proper nutrients and if you can't get
them from foods then supplements will do just as well in most
instances."
During the years with the
genius doctor she developed shortness of breath, swollen legs
and ankles, chest pains and more fatigue. Genius sent her to a
cardiologist who found a Mitrial Valve Prolapse (MVP), heart valve problem. He let
her watch the ultrasound and she observed the valve flapping and
not completely stopping the blood flow as it should, but was
assured that if she took antibiotics with any procedures she
could live a long happy life with exercise and care! More on
that later.
Lena has listed a group
of questions to ask your doctor so that you may determine
the necessity of a prescription, she also included some
home remedies used on her patients during her career in
her book, "Antibiotic
Alternatives To Preventing Mega Bacteria!"
After leaving the brilliant
Internist she fell into a whole exciting but as she describes,
"A gut wrenching profession of setting up new medical
offices along with medical consulting."
She states, "I feel like a
very lucky lady in that I have had a very successful life in two
areas - Medical Office Nursing Administration and Teaching
Medical Office Management and Procedures - greatly enjoyed both.
I am now successfully combining those experiences with Online
Marketing of my own Internet Home Based Business and Natural
Healthy Environmental friendly products."
Opening a New Medical Office Had It's Pluses
and Minuses!
In each of the offices she
opened usually consisted of the doctor seeing patients and her
as the lone office & triage nurse, receptionist, insurance
clerk, PR person, and patient counselor until the office grew
large enough to add personnel. That process took from three
months to three years to grow into a well functioning successful
office...
She also
founded a temporary employment agency for medical personnel
while still working in a medical office and set up that
business in the same medical building giving her the ability to
handle both offices. She could be described as a workaholic as
both offices created 18-20 hour days. She says, "There were
some doctors I had to deal with in the agency which were
anything but honest. I won't bore you with the nightmare tales
here, but it was a hellish experience in some instances. I became very
familiar with Small Claims Court due to those problems. But I
soon realized that particular business wasn't my forte or love and the
medical office was my true passion and love, I sold the agency a
year later."
She took on a teaching
position at a paramedical school and taught Medical Office
Management and Medical Assisting nights but within just a matter
of weeks after starting the teaching position, she was
approached to set up and open a new medical clinic in San
Bernardino California, which was in proximity to the Paramedical
School making it feasible to both teach and work in the midst of
the medical world.
Being overworked set up a
situation to create crises flare-ups with her fibromyalgia and
another step in searching for alternative treatments that the
average traditional medical profession could not offer, in order
to alleviate the pain that the prescriptions were unable to
control, without heavy sedative effects. With the
prescription medications came drowsiness inability to
think rationally and only a slightly lesser degree of pain
anyway, leaving her unable to work at times and sure that there was something else,
if she could just find it?
She was forced to leave
teaching a little over a year later. Simply because sitting in
faculty meetings, of which about 1/3 of the instructors smoked,
she would develop horrific histamine headaches and weeks of pain
because of it, so she soon found faculty meetings
intolerable, as they would not forego smoking during the
meetings.
One positive did come
from the headaches though. The prescriptions given for the
histamine headaches left her nausea, vomiting and unable to
function from the horrible side effects and the inpatient
IV treatments given for the headaches, were equally as bad. She
accidentally found the headaches could be alleviated with
chiropractic treatment and herbs in minutes.
Upon leaving her first
organized medical clinic in San Bernardino, California three and
a half years from the onset there were then nine doctors and 17 employees in a
very large clinic of over 3000 patients of which about 99% were
HMO insured. This clinic initially opened with her, a
receptionist and a doctor. She says, "The HMO patient load
made for a great education in juggling treatment protocol and
insurance company protocol. They collide with a loud crash for
the most part, and since I was the gatekeeper and patient
advocate and chairman of the Quality Control and Quality
Assurance committees along with my Medical Director, it was a real dance
and challenge to balance the patients needs and the insurance
companies rules. Just guess who is the loser there?" She
says, "I wonder how
many people actually do receive the care they need since most
people simply want to do their job and not rock the boat.
Each clinic/office should have someone sitting as a caring sensitive advocate in
each medical facility with the capability of keeping the patient
first and not the HMO/PPO. But that isn't happening"
For the next fourteen years
she set up 44 clinics and medical offices throughout
Southern California. Getting them up and running onto strong
footing and moved on to do it all over again. She says,
"Each was a real feeling of accomplishment with the
successes and ability to learn and pass it on. And I became very
familiar with the California freeway system."
One Sports
Medicine Clinic that she sat up had both alternative and
traditional medicine, which required a great deal of study on
her part and truly awakened her to the real conflict that exists
in medicine but doesn't have to. That clinic proved to be a turning point or, as she calls
it "a wake up call to what great alternative methods exist in medical
treatments that truly work and is much
healthier with little to no side effects." She says she diligently studied
under the nutritionist and chiropractor absorbing everything she
could. Her disillusionment with the
chemical medications, that never seem to cure a problem,
found her more interested in nutrition as a means of healing.
She then took nutrition courses adding to her ability of helping
people find cures and preventions of many diseases... Over those
years she managed to receive her MA, MBA and Medical Office
Administration Certification, and studied alternative health
& healing treatments without a degree, which rounded out her
career. But also made for a very busy person growing and
consulting with many medical practices and clinics throughout
Southern California.
While running a clinic in Palm
Springs California for a very difficult and demanding doctor,
she began to experience more extensive chest pains, more
frequent shortness of breath and problems walking up stairs and
short distances to the point of almost passing out... After having a
battery of tests she was diagnosed with 75% to 80% blocked
heart arteries along with her existing valve problem making it
perilous according to her cardiologist.
Failing her stress test the cardiologist scheduled her for angioplasty with probable bypass
even after she had said no. She refused that mode of treatment and left the
hospital AMA and found Whitaker's Wellness Clinic in Newport
Beach California where she underwent successful Chelation
Therapy and corrected the blockage and even corrected the MVP
she had experienced all those years. She says that
anyone who has a heart problem and doesn't try the Chelation
Therapy is missing the boat in natural health and healing.
Non-invasive, no side effects, less expensive, long lasting
repair and no-life
threatening surgery to contend with so why would they not
try it if they know about it?
After finding healing she then
went to work for a friend in Irvine California and the first day
in the clinic she ended up firing a doctor and
reported him to the state Attorney Generals Office for gross
malpractice, of which she later spent a week in trial to
successfully remove that doctors medical license
She says,
"that's a whole other story in itself
I can only say he
was the worst of the worst!"
Her position
as Personnel Director, along with administrator of the company's
clinics,
was evaluating medical offices and clinics that were for sale,
and helping to convert them into HMO clinics -- She says,
"See I went to the enemy's camp for a short while as a
favor to a valued friend." She would go in evaluate an
office that was for sale, look at the medical records and
financial records to see if it was truly worth buying and decide
whether the doctor was an effective physician then advise
the Company as to it's worth and/or doctor's abilities. She would handle the change over, set
up the computer system and manage the employee
patient ratio to correspond properly and write office
protocols to interact with the HMO's.
She says, "I met some more
really off-the-wall money-grubbing doctors while doing that!"
adding, "I cannot stress enough to people how careful they
must be when seeing a doctor - Be informed and take charge of
your own health and let the doctor be a partner
Do not give
him/her free rein with your treatment, medications and
testing
you could become one of the dreaded statistics sooner or
later!"
Statistics and other nightmares found in her book
"Dangers & Secrets Doctors Refuse to tell You,"
are pretty gross!
Painful Experience Lead to More
Information!
Then Christmas Eve 1996 a visit
to a chiropractor's to realign her TMJ (temple mandibular
joint) resulted in a ruptured C-7 neck vertebral disc.
He failed to acknowledge a problem for weeks and
proceeded to ground the material into her spinal cord afterward
causing her to have several surgeries creating damages to her
spinal cord and loss of control of her legs virtually ending
her abilities to get out and work full time. Lesson
learned she says, "If a chiropractor is rough run out of
his/her office and don't look back!"
Having controlled the
fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis with herbs and mineral nutrients
for several years prior to the ruptured C-7, that event came as
a devastating blow and sent her autoimmune disease into a
tailspin again, because of all the anesthesia and antibiotics administered
for all the surgeries. Having even dissolved the arthritic nodules on
her finger joints with the herbs she now had to start all over
again in order to bring it back to remission...
This came close to sending her
over the edge! But she states, "Out of bad things can
come good, if you look for them and I have looked and found
them. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"
But she feels she had a great
experience with a fantastic doctor at Barrows Neurological
Institute in Phoenix, AZ and feels that St. Joseph's Hospital is a
place every hospital should be patterned after. "Make
lemonade out of lemons," she always says.
Now
she has become experienced with the system of justice, because
of this incident, and she says, "It's not at all fair nor
just."
Her Most Fulfilling But
Frustrating Life Position!
She feels that the medical
office triage nurse was the most fulfilling of all the areas she
has handled in her career. Also the most frustrating!
She states, "I
do not take the world at face value without doing some analyzing
of my surroundings... I cannot be accused of being a follower
for the sake of following, I need to know why I do things
and found that disconcerting to most physicians I worked
with."
She goes on to say, "What I observed and heard was totally different from what the average patient or
even most medical office personnel sees. I became totally disenchanted
with the traditional medical profession, that I came to know
after HMO medicine became the rule! But
I became healthier because of it and helped others to do the
same with alternative methods, which I searched out. Some
treatments I just plain accidentally found, such as nutrition,
herbs, etc., which I have been able
to pass on occasionally to help others who are open to trying
alternatives."
"The
ability of a triage person is there to really help people, truly a great
fulfillment, to those who have the back bone to stand alone. It takes
an independent minded nurse to be able to fully help patients become
healthier and they are extremely hard to find... I had my ups and downs with it... a patient would
call in with symptoms indicating a reaction to their
prescription given them and the doctors treatment of choice usually was
to prescribe another prescription to counteract the effects of
the that prescription's side effect. I have seen patients end up with three or
four prescriptions due to reactions to the first or second one
causing a problem. I have watched people go downhill because of
the drug treatments prescribed. Watching that regimen practiced
by most of the doctors I worked with was like watching a row of
dominoes falling that just didn't seem to stop and most people
will not listen to anyone but the doctor and die or become very
ill because of their 'doctor's know-it-all' attitude. Nobody
knows it all not even me, but I will find someone who has the
answer if I don't have it."
Lena feels that there is
an alternative healing treatment for most all simple and some
not so simple illnesses and preventions that should be practiced
by everyone before going the traditional burn/cut/poison
treatments. A combining of traditional and alternative medicine
does exit but is out there for you if you are willing to risk
finding it. She feels that the traditional and natural
medicine practitioners are working against each other to the
determent of the patients and she wants that to change. Her
hopes are that she can be an instrument in helping that change
come about. Her dream is to see both traditional and
alternatives used together for the betterment of every human
being. She sees that happening a little more now but is many
years away from coming to fruition.
Her philosophy is, "Yes,
there is risk in everything. Medicine and medical treatments has
never been an exact science even though the profession would
like you to believe it is!" She
feels that she is now in a position to really help people in
both physical and financial situations. She says that
natural healing remedies and prevention can save a person
thousands of dollars a year and possibly millions in a life time
besides lengthening their life considerably while giving them
quality as well as quantity of life.
Find out how she got
to where she did and what alternatives she discovered and how
you can prevent those dangers from impacting your life.
Find out what questions to ask your doctor to assure your
treatment(s) are necessary and if there are alternatives to
replace it!
Find out how natural
alternatives could possibly change your life and health as well
as give you deeper insight into what led Lena to learn and
practice the way she does.
Find out what doctors
know and practice but do not pass on to their patients, read her
book, "Dangers
& Secrets Doctors Refuse To Tell You" and
"Antibiotic Alternatives To Preventing
Mega Bacteria."
Lena says, "Take
Charge of your health and become better for it.
To see what I do everyday to prevent returning to bad health
Click
Here "
PS:
To subscribe
her health & business ezine's "A Natural
Environmental Health Facts" & "Your Home
Business Coach"
Click Here
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