Continuing to advocate for child's health

Shelley Hurguy, RN, Holistic Health Coach, shares advice for parents who have a child with a disease or illness on how to be an advocate for your child's health care and treatment
How To Be An Advocate For Your Child's Health
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Continuing to advocate for child's health

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The role of medical advocate for my daughter has become second nature. I’m very comfortable with the role now and I have stopped condemning the medical profession for not being able to do it for me. I’m able to obtain orders from medicines or x-rays based on my assessment of what’s going on in her body. And it isn’t because I’m a nurse, it’s because I’m her mother and I know her body better than any doctor does. Her physician respects this and he trusts me. I trust him as well, although I don’t always carry out his orders to a T. I’m a rule follower and I respect what he’s done for my daughter, but there are times that I felt I needed to stray a little bit. I always kept the lines of communication open with him about this. I never did anything behind his back. A good example is he suggested that she take a certain fiber supplement. I researched this supplement and I noticed in the ingredients that it contained artificial sweeteners and dyes. I kept researching and I found a suitable alternative that did not have any of those ingredients. He laughs at me, because it’s not important to him, but it works for me.

Shelley Hurguy, RN, Holistic Health Coach, shares advice for parents who have a child with a disease or illness on how to be an advocate for your child's health care and treatment

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Shelley Hurguy, RN, MSN, CRNA, CHHC

Certified Holistic Health Counselor

I am holistic health coach with a certificate from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I have a Master’s Degree in Nursing, and worked as a Nurse Anesthetist for over a decade. I have been trained in more than one hundred dietary theories and found my passion for the power of healing through food when I read Paul Pitchford’s Healing With Whole Foods in response to my daughter’s medical challenges.

My daughter was born with a congenital bowel defect and endured several surgeries before her first birthday. After a highly specialized surgery to render her continent at age eight, my daughter was sent home with a list of medications that were intended for use unendingly. The medications contained chemicals and food dyes meant to alter the passage of food through her gastrointestinal tract, and I couldn’t find a natural supplemental alternative. I began to research dietary solutions to her body’s response to food, digestion and elimination.

During this time of navigating my daughter’s medical condition, professionally, I was administering anesthesia to patients undergoing bariatric surgery; a process of shrinking the stomach so the patient is forced to eat less food. I knew there had to be a better way to solve the issue of obesity, and that there was more to being overweight than just eating too much.

I have learned that what we eat and what we don't eat can profoundly affect and heal our bodies. I offer personalized “roadmaps to health,” created to suit each individual’s body, lifestyle, preferences and goals.

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