Theresa loves nature, animals, photography, and outdoor activities. After retiring from the Navy, she became a consultant to government contractors, helping them write proposals by “translating” technical solutions into layman’s terms focusing on the advantages of the proposed solution. While fascinating and rewarding work, she lived on the road most of the year, worked long hours, got minimal sleep, faced stress-filled deadlines, ate poorly, and rarely exercised. Even before learning her APOE status, she knew she was ruining her health. So she quit consulting to enjoy a healthier, more desired lifestyle. Unfortunately, her post-retirement activities led to an orthopedic foot issue that required surgery, and then corrective surgeries, none of which fully resolved the pain. At this same time, 2014, she learned her APOE ε4/4 status. Researching these two areas: chronic pain and APOE, has led her down many paths both traditional and nontraditional. This health journey has opened her eyes in many ways. She feels she’s learned volumes, albeit with many more volumes to go. She’s motivated to share what she’s learned, and similar to her work as a consultant, she enjoys “translating” medical findings into understandable language as best she can. In 2013 at age 50, four years into a health journey that had restored his vigor, Marc learned he carries an APOE-ε4 allele that predisposes him to dementia and heart disease. That knowledge put his family history in perspective, motivated him to redouble his health efforts, and led him to ApoE4.Info. There he found a culture that rejects the conventional fatalism about chronic disease. He learned to read the scientific literature critically to learn about APOE-ε4 and to identify promising risk reduction strategies.

CHESHIRE EAST COUNCIL

Julie remembers reading about the record titles for the tallest and oldest living people, and never imagined her dog would someday be a Guinness World Records title holder. Treat them like family because they are. Give them a happy positive environment as much as possible, good clean food and proper healthcare,” said Julie. The doctors were unaware that the symptoms were being faked and Julie was subjected to a litany of tests that an adult would find invasive and even painful. She even had unnecessary surgery. If Julie was not convincing enough, she was punished harshly by her mother. acute pain; communication; nursing care; observations; pain; pain assessment; pain management; patient behaviour; patient experience; patients. We had migraine headaches. We had sore throats," she said. "[Then we had] intestinal issues. I had to drink barium meals."

🍪 Privacy & Transparency

As Bobby looked around, he noticed the puppy following him and running alongside her enclosure every time he would walk by. When I was 13, I was cut open for a heart catheterization," Gregory said. "I didn't know I was in the hospital for an actual surgery." The blurb and marketing for this book really imply that it’s about Munchausen by proxy, don’t they? Well, it mostly isn’t. It’s mostly about what a terrible person Sandy Gregory is, how abusive and how insane, plus an indictment of the author’s (also abusive) father. MBP isn’t mentioned until Gregory takes a community college psych class and concludes that the symptoms match her mother’s. She also diagnoses her father with paranoid schizophrenia; My Father’s Keeper, published a few years after this, has more on that. At last, I’ll just take one medication that will fix everything. I’ll have friends, be in sports, go to movies. Mom’ll be happy; she won’t have to stay at home or clean up after old men or foster kids. And I’ll be a real kid and not miss school anymore,” (98). When Taylors, South Carolina, USA residents Bobby and Julie Gregory decided to welcome a puppy into their family, they had no idea that over two decades later, their treasured Pebbles would hold a record title for the oldest dog living.

Sicked: The True Story of a Lost Childhood - UK Essays

I was about 12 when my mum took me to a new doctor. I was sitting in a chair and the doctor asked me to stand-up. I hadn't been eating at all and as I stood my heart raced and I felt faint. But the doctor said that I could have a heart problem and should probably go and get a test. My mum really zeroed in on that. From that day forward she started telling people I had a heart condition. When her mother was not dragging her to medical appointments and hospitals, Julie still had no escape from the abuse. At home (where she should have been able to feel safe and secure) her mother subjected her to more child abuse, including beatings and starvation.This passage represents the struggles Julie must face at each doctor’s appointment in an effort to please her mother. Here, Julie does not even understand what a headache is. Throughout her story, she sights various occasions in which she does not understand what the doctors or her mother say. When Julie says she is trying to answer correctly, she must guess at what her mother wants to hear. Julie lies to doctors so her mother will not get upset. I can not imagine having to lie about my health and the fear Julie faces. If Julie tells the truth, her mother may return home yelling at her father. If Julie lies about her symptoms, she will be forced on medication she does not need which could make her ill. Julie is an innocent girl, and this passage causes the reader to empathize with Julie and wish to grab her hand and help her. Munchausen's syndrome by proxy is the falsification or induction of illness, whether physical, emotional or both, by a caretaker of a dependent person. In most cases the perpetrator is a mother and the victim her child. This biography of a living person relies on a single source. You can help by adding reliable sources to this article. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately. ( March 2022) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) This passage is important because it reveals that Julie’s dad knows that Sandy is hurting his daughter. I think that he realizes that it is too late to help Julie, but he still has a chance to save Danny. Although Dan Sr. is an aggressive father who often appears not to care about his children, I think by standing up for Danny’s health he proves that he does care about his children as do all fathers. However, I think Dan beating Sandy will not stop her from abusing Danny. She has a disease that she cannot control, and all Dan really is doing is scaring Julie with her mother’s screams and harming Sandy. As horrific as that is, there was also physical, verbal, and emotional abuse. Julie was beaten, starved, and subjected to situations no child should ever bear witness to. All because her mother wanted the attention.

Julie Gregory (Author of Sickened) - Goodreads

Munchhausen's and Munchhausen's by Proxy are fascinating syndromes. One of my favorite novels has a great example, but it's kind of spoilerific: Sharp Objects After news of the former oldest dog living, TobyKeith, first broke, the Gregorys realized that Pebbles was older.

Cite This Work

My mum was furious. She said, “John I thought we were in this together, I thought you were going to do this open heart surgery.” If you are wondering if I like her, well she is more a friend of a friend that I have known forever, I don't particularly but she can be good company. She talks about health problems of all her family (parents included) a lot. She is looking for admiration for her knowledge and sympathy for her plight as she has to care for them despite her own physical limitations. I wouldn't have gone through the pains to write this book if it wasn't for those children," says Gregory, who believes that her mother now treats them in almost the same way as she treated her own children. "The best way I can be a witness to their lives is to take the reader through my eyes - and you know then that you want to save those children. Rewritten to protect the guilty and me from embarrassment. I wouldn't want anyone to think it was about them, especially if it was. They always joke about it and tell us all the time how amazing it is that we still have her as most of them have known us over 20 years and remember when we got her,” Julie continued.