tropical medicine

This is where we (Mark and I) spent the morning. We met the most wonderful tropical medicine doctor. He was very personable and seemed to really know his stuff. He agreed that it sounded like Mark has Malaria, but also concerned that we needed to be sure there was not something else. In the end, i would imagine that the total tests he ordered were over $1000. Mark has not been as sick today as he has been over the last week, but that is typical of Malaria. The treatment is a medication that he already knows makes him feel bad. And he is taking 4x the dose for the next 4 days. So he gets premedicated with a medication to try to prevent the nausea and vomiting.

Friday when he came to my office and was feeling so badly, his blood pressure was 190/110. It had been so well managed with exercise, i could not believe it. Today he was feeling better and his pressure was 130/70. It is amazing how being ill taxes the body. He has had up and down symptoms for almost a week now.

Mark took his first round of medications this morning and promptly did not feel well, and slept much of the afternoon. He ate a little tonight, but complains that his belly does not feel well.
The girls were good caretakers for him today.

I had a WONDERFUL busy day at work. I had some of my wonderful past patients. Tomorrow I am headed out to the childrens nursing home where I am on call to see the kids. Cailin is looking forward to going with me.It will be a short day.

Lots going on, but i am not complaining.
I am glad to know that the Lord has a plan in our lives.

MALARIA ITS NOT JUST FOR BREAKFAST ANY MORE: I HATE MOSQUITOS!!!!!!!!!

Since returning from my 2 trips to Haiti and my month long trip to Liberia, I have noticed that every 10-14 days I have been getting sick. The intensity of these illnesses have grown with each occurence.

I have had the Plasmodium falciparum type of malaria twice before. But it would appear I have now been blessed with a new type, Plasmodium vivax. This type is a little different, it is not as fatal but the little fellas like to make a nest in your liver and come out periodically to let you know they are there. This nesting makes them harder to kill requiring a stronger medicine that needs to be taken for 15 days instead of the normal 3 days.

I have a 8am appointment with a tropical medicine doctor tomorrow, Zana will be coming with me to tell the doctors the correct symptoms.

My travel insurance is supposed to cover this, but since it has taken so long to diagnose, they probably won't cover it. So prayers for health, wisdom and finances would be appreciated.

I will keep you updated on the outcome,

Mark -out

A hot august day

We have had a crazy wonderful few weeks. This week we have had some overlaping company. My uncle and his kids came to visit yesterday and we have had a wonderful teen mania girl visiting. It has been such a blessing.

http://http//www.mercyships.org/blog/entry/cleaning-up

The link I posted is an article that Mercy Ships has about the Fistula program onboard the ship. This was my favorite program to work with while I was onboard. My heart was always touched in ways you cannot imagine.

These women come to the ship for thie last chance to be healed/fixed. A vaginal fistula is a disorder created in child birth or from trauma and the result is a hole from the vagina to the bladder or rectum causing them to leak fluids etc, continuously. CONTINUOUSLY. This makes them outcasts in their tribes and with their families. We would bring them onboard and begin the process to ready them for surgery.

I would go down to the ward in the mornings and gradually watch their faces begin to shine and smile. Even with a catheter after their surgery, they were "DRY" for the first time in who knows how long. To me it is the most vivid picture of giving new life. They are transformed. We get to keep them in the hospital for 2 weeks and share their lives and impact their lives forever.

The sounds of the "dress ceremony" is something never to forget. It is a time to praise the Lord and to celebrate the new lives. It is amazing to be apart of this entire process.

I have just recently been reminiscing about some of our experiences with Mercy Ships. Being here at the base puts us in a position that give support services for the outreaches that continue onboard. I miss being in the middle of things, but I know that we are right where God wants us at this very moment.

I don't know what God has for tomorrow, we are at this weird place where some things are hard, like finances:), but some things are easy like knowing that our family is growing and changing constantly. The girls start school soon and they are both growing up to be such awesome young women. i cant believe Jessie is going to High School. In one month (Labor Day), it seems like so much will be different. It is so exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is Saturday night. Mark is working hard. He has been in the home office all day working and I do not know when he will get any sleep. He is working so hard on these reports that he needs to complete for Mercy Ships from his trip to Liberia. I know it is so much information. Our ship was there for a long time. It has been a weird week and weird problems. From the stupid above ground pool that should have been easy, but so was NOT. We have all worked very hard on it. We hit a sewer line in the process. So it is all coming together. The pool is up and refreshing.

Cailin is home from camp. She was in bed by 8pm. She was so tired. Jessie went to a friends house for a bday party. they are such wonderful kids. I am so proud of them. It has been a nice summer. I cant believe it is almost over.

We have so many weird decisions we are trying to make. And they all build on themselves. It is all in trying to keep on a path for what we feel God would have in our lives. I think we are going to have quit a lot of company this week. We will see!!!

And he comes the last week of July 2010........................

Well look at that--Long

Ok, after how many years, My beloved husband has gotten onto the blogging and fundraising bandwagon. We joined Mercy Ships in April 2004, so I guess better late than never. Don't get me wrong, he does many thing great, but keeping in touch, not always so much. I am very proud of him. Early in our time with Mercy Ships, I did most of the correspondence, but as the years go by, I have gotten more and more busy. Now I find myself in a position of being the support to his work with Mercy Ships. Over the years, I have seen Mark grow into an amazing new person, he really is not the man he once was, well in some ways:) He was always wonderful, but he is different. He has grown into a new person.

The whole idea of fundraising as a missionary has been very hard for him. I remember the many years leading up to becoming missionaries, and Mark would say over and over that the Lord would have to drop the funds on our head, because he would never take money from others. In the meantime, we supported and did things for missionaries for years. Then There was this huge change in his spirit and he knew that we were to serve full time and that he could live on support. Early in our missionary life I handeled most of these matters, but by virtue of the way we have worked with Mercy Ships, it was not for me to do, nor did I have the time. So communication has been poor and things have slipped terribly.

We lived on the ship for a few years, then we came back to the base for Mercy Ships and Mark went to graduate school. During that time, we knew that we needed to put down some sort of roots, for the kids and for the future. I got an opportunity to be at the Mercy Ships base and work in a small clinic in Tyler. During that time, the Lord really grew my ministry in the area. I was and am now again in a clinic that is a set fee for service for visits, affordable visits. My heart has been for people who either have no insurance or high deductibles. Some of my specialties have been bio-identical hormones, weight loss, and general care (including lots of missionaries). God showed me a fantastic ministry to my patients.

My goal for the part time income I have brought in to this point has been to fill in the gaps in our support. Those gaps grew, support fell off and commitments increased with his school and the house, and some crazy medical things that came up. It was weird how some things fell apart all at one time. Just a few weeks after we decide to buy a house, Mark injured his shoulder and ended up needing major surgery, our deductible was huge and we took that hit. We did ok financially with his school for a while and then things just began to grow. Then jobs changed for me, and wow just things changed and changed.

Now the Lord has us in a great but scary place. I am for the most part working for myself, paying a doc for all of my support services. Upside, I did not have a large investment to start the practice, downside--I give him a significant percentage. The biggest Upside is that if we can get our feet on the ground, I am in the situation that I could go with Mark the next time he is off to Africa on one of his trips for assessment. I want to be back serving with him on the field so bad.

It has been great to watch what he has been doing on the field. He loves what he does. He loved graduate school and knows that it has made him so good at his job. So here we are in a balancing act that we have been loosing lately financially, but knowing it is going to come back around the right direction because we both know we are doing what God has called us to as a couple and as individuals.

So here is the swift kick in my husband rear end----step up to the plate. We live a life on support and this is yourr story to share. So he is going to stop keeping the story to himself.

So take a look at the archive of past blogs to see some our past adventures.

Saturday...........

I am trying to be so much better about communicating. It seems I can always make an excuse for not getting around to this. Mark and the girls went to a neighbors house to swim. Such a blessing, a pool to use but nothing to maintain. We are going to a cookout to see an old friend this afternoon. Mark has been working for days to finish his newsletter. His experiences are much more exciting than mine at this point, but I have so much going on too. Some days wishing I would just take a breath and do nothing for a while, but I just don't seem to be able to do that.It has been a crazy 2 months. Lots of lessons learned. Realizing just how those things that can feel so bad, can be just what God has to move our lives in a new direction. I was really blessed when I lost my job back in march to get a job within a week. The Lord gave me this opportunity to be at a job that is very low stress and has the hours worked around so that I have had some time to pursue what I really want to do and be. I am also doing a few hours here and there seeing some alzheimer patients. I picked up some of the patients from my previous job because the facility asked me to see them because I had a good system with them. So I am excited to be back there now.

In the meantime, I have been meeting with a doc in town about making arrangements to have my own practice within his group. It is just what I was praying for thoughout this season in my life. My heart is truly for people to have affordable and personal healthcare. So many people here in East Texas either do not have insurance or they have high deductibles ($1000-$5000) So that it is cheaper to pay for a discounted cash visit.

I have found that my passion is for hormone therapy and good primary care. Over the past few years I have grown a practice to help people loose weight. Who would have thought that what I would need to help myself would be to help others. It is my favorite thing that I do with my patients. It really ministers into my own life. I have the opportunity to have my own practice under his roof. It is great and weird to have this doc be so supportive yet, not getting my business and encouraging me to control my own practice. It is certainly what I wanted, but now that I have it I dont know what to do with the control. But I am figuring it out. It is exciting that I have just enough side work to make ends meet while I get up and running. I actually had my first office day of clinic and ended up with no patients, which is weird because I really thought I would have appointments quickly. It was a little last minute when I was able to let people know I would be in clinic again, but I was just a little scared.

Mark is so busy with all of his work from this last trip to Liberia. He is trying to communicate more of this experience, with a little pushing.

So here we go, it is summer, Jessie is going into high school. Cailin is going into 6th grade and going to play the tuba:) I am now Zana Elliott enterprises!!!!! And Mark is dreaming of Africa day and night!!!!!!! hmmmm, dont know what the future holds....but it is a great journey.

Back in business

Hey Friends and Family

You have all been wonderfully supportive as I have worked out the details of my new practice options. Well the details are finally settled. I will again be seeing patients as of Friday, June 4th. I am very excited to be back to seeing patients. My practice will be a straight fee for service and I will not take insurance. I do have a wonderful coder in the office and will have the

receipts with proper codes and an appropriate diagnosis for submitting the bill to insurance for reimbursement or towards deductible. I will be doing many of the things I have done in the past for my patients. I will do primary care medicine, hormone therapy and weight loss. We are still working out the kinks at the office because of the new arrangement. Initially I will be in the office Tuesdays 1pm-8pm and Friday 11am-4pm. My hours will increase as the practice increases.

Office information:

903-526-2323 Phone number

Located at 64E and loope 323, in the shopping center with the Scroll bookstore.

Practice name: Tyler Physical Medicine

Thank you and blessings,

Zana Elliott