Essential x 2

Pandemic story of an independent doctor married to a cop

The past 2 years have been difficult and mind blowing, but I have emerged stronger, thanks to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, my amazing and supportive husband and family, and many new friends I’ve made, who saw through the lies of the past few years and refused to be quiet.

In March 2020, I was inclined to trust Dr. Fauci. Prior to medical school, I worked at the NIAID for 7 years, including 3 years spent working in the Office of Policy Analysis down the hall from “Tony.” My responsibilities included science writing (interpreting NIAID research studies into lay language) and drafting Dr. Fauci’s remarks to NIAID Council every 3 months. He knew me then, but I doubt he would remember me now. As a young, impressionable, fairly left leaning woman, aspiring to be a family doctor, I admired Dr. Fauci, though I knew (everyone knew), he had a very large ego. I believed him to be an honest, nonpartisan “scientist.” In hindsight, I realize I was naïve. Even though I wanted to trust him and the other people on the COVID task force, the response from our government always seemed unscientific to me. With a Masters in Public Health, I understood that the “flatten the curve” idea was unprecedented and anathema to everything I had learned about respiratory viruses and public health in general. But, in my mind, what was 2 weeks? We could all adjust our lives for 2 weeks.

My husband is a homicide detective in Louisville, KY. His 77 year old mother lives with us and our 2 teenage sons. We told his mom in March 2020 that we weren’t going to be able to shield her from this new virus, since we both would continue working. Ironically, she is the only member of our household who has not tested positive to this day. She decided to stay with us, rather than leaving to stay with other family members who could have remained sheltered. My parents decided to continue living their lives as well, and thankfully, we interacted and celebrated with our family that spring and summer as we typically would have.

In late March and early April, I saw most of my patients by telemedicine, but if I decided a patient needed to be seen in person, I saw him/her at the office. Because I own my direct primary care practice, I made these decisions without having to consult with a hospital administrator or practice manager. My patients pay a monthly fee for membership, which covers all primary care services, and in some cases addiction treatment, so my income did not decrease during the early days of the pandemic. Physician friends in my community, who were hospital employed, had a very different experience. In Kentucky, we had very few cases of SARS-COV-2 in the spring of 2020, and several hospitals and outpatient, hospital owned clinics sat empty for several months. One physician friend of mine was forced to pay her hospital back some bonus payments, due to loss of productivity in her practice. In April, we relocated my practice and immediately resumed in person appointments. Since I do not have a busy waiting room, I was very confident that I could limit exposure to SARS-Cov-2 among my patients.

In April, Job Creators Network contacted me to participate in a campaign called “flatten the fear” to help reassure Americans that SARS-Cov-2 was proving to be less deadly than the early models had predicted. We knew from data from other countries and from the Diamond Princess that the case fatality rate was lower than predicted, that the virus was much more dangerous to specific groups of people, particularly the elderly, and that kids were less likely to get very sick from this new virus. I wrote several op eds and appeared on a few radio shows, including the Hugh Hewitt show to talk about the negative secondary consequences of lockdowns, advocating for return to school for all American children. By the end of April, I was already seeing patients struggle in recovery, decline in their mental health, and lose jobs. My husband was seeing a startling rise in shootings, homicides, and overdoses in Louisville, KY. Many of the homicides involved teenagers who would have normally been in school.

In March, I agreed to appear on WLKY, a local Louisville station, to answer audience questions about the new virus. After a few weeks, I asked the producer if I could talk about the lockdowns and the devastating consequences we were already seeing. The local news stations had no interest in my opinions and experience on other matters of public health. They were very committed early on to a narrow focus on the case rate of COVID and our Governor’s response to the contagion.

As an independent direct care physician, I have more time than most physicians to analyze data myself. Daily, I would analyze the COVID case rate and the available science on the virus and share with my friends, patients and family, mostly on social media (since most people were not comfortable meeting in person). I shared information with my pastor, who continued to follow the guidance provided by our government, despite my urging him to open the church for people. In my mind, a government mandating closure of churches was unconstitutional and I strongly believed that many people would suffer greatly without their church/faith as a constant. Closing churches based on fear of a virus defied the word of God, in my opinion. For many reasons, my family would eventually find a new church in our community that resumed in person service and groups as soon as possible.

The constant fear mongering by our state and Federal government and media was baffling to me very early in the pandemic. By the end of May, the reality that the government response was not about a virus, smacked me in the face. On March 13, we were informed that my kids’ schools would close (for 2 weeks…) and on that same night, LMPD executed simultaneous warrants in Louisville, which unfortunately resulted in the death of Breonna Taylor. Since I am married to an LMPD detective who knows many of the officers involved in the case, I knew many of the “details” of the incident involving Ms. Taylor. When the chaos ensued after George Floyd died in May of 2020, protestors descended on Louisville, claiming that Breonna was “murdered” by LMPD officers. At 12:30 am one night, my husband was called into work and told to bring his riot gear. A few days later, Dr. Fauci and friends declared protests safe from the threat of covid “superspread.” Meanwhile, my kids still were not being educated and I immediately realized that there was a bigger, more sinister agenda than preventing the spread of respiratory virus.

Rioting continued throughout the summer of 2020 in Louisville and prevented me from joining my colleagues from American Frontline Doctors in July when they convened in DC for the infamous press conference that culminated in further censorship and defamation of highly qualified, dedicated physicians who had been treating patients for months. While my husband worked long hours as a detective, working shootings, homicides, overdoses, and suicides (all increased during the pandemic), I was open for business in Crestwood at my direct care practice. We both were working long hours, stretched thin, and we were unable to micromanage our kids as they tried to complete the school year online, with extremely slow satellite wifi in our house. Though stressed and overworked, we never cowered from the virus and continued to live our lives normally. Our elderly parents opted to use common sense and spend time with us as usual, as long as everyone was feeling well. As I watched friends, family members, and patients cancel trips, avoid contact with loved ones, and generally act as if they were constantly guarded and worried about this virus, I felt anger toward the people responsible (media, public health, hospitals, doctors). Very soon after the mitigation efforts started, like many physicians, I began to see increases in anxiety, depression, job loss, financial stress, and substance use among my patients. I knew in my heart that our government and the “experts” were doing more harm with the response to the virus than the virus itself caused for most people.

In September of 2020, Daniel Cameron announced that charges would not be brought against most of the officers involved in the Breonna Taylor incident and riots erupted in Louisville once again. During this phase of rioting, 2 police officers were shot and my husband was called to the scene. When we learned of the shooting, I had called Chris, with my kids in the car, and he immediately said “I’m ok, I can’t talk” and hung up the phone. I learned about the chaos on social media and spent some time reassuring my kids that things would eventually calm down. My emotions ranged from anger to fear to contempt for people who did not believe what I knew to be true about the Breonna Taylor case and/or the pandemic. Several of my long time friendships suffered during this time, due to the successful efforts of our government to politicize covid and divide people over race, education, law enforcement, and seemingly endless topics. The upcoming election and lifestyle differences among many of my friends living in DC at the time alienated me in many ways. As members of the “zoom” class, they could not relate to my perspective on law enforcement or the pandemic. I’m grateful for my strong relationship with family members, especially my husband and also with Jesus, which helped me through this confusing and lonely time in my life.

During 2020, 2 of my former patients relapsed and died of fentanyl overdose. I attended one funeral, where attendance was limited and we were all forced to wear masks. Many of the usual medical conferences were canceled and conducted online. Many medical practices refused to see patients with any respiratory symptoms in the office and conducted testing in the parking lot. Many patients went months without seeing a physician in person for chronic conditions, due to unprecedented restrictions on hospital owned outpatient practices. Diagnosis of various cancers was delayed, and people suffered and died as a result. In December of 2020, my cousin, who had recently relapsed on opioids, died of an overdose while awaiting a covid test result. He was an attorney and had contacted a professional rehab facility, and was told he would be admitted as soon as he tested negative for covid. He did not have symptoms, nor was he recently exposed to covid. Obviously, his chronic disease of addiction was more life threatening than covid in his case. Similar stories were shared on social media, and yet news media would not cover these obvious examples of tragic consequences of nonscientific public health policy. Thankfully, I was able to communicate with likeminded physicians, scientists, and other members of “team reality” on Signal, Substack and other uncensored outlets.

In September of 2020, we started to finally see some cases of covid in our county. By this time, I had been following Dr. Peter McCoullough and other colleagues on the front lines, who were very experienced in treating patients. In my direct primary care (DPC) practice, I dispense medications, and I was able to order hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, prednisone, budesonide and vitamins and prescribe/dispense for patients at very affordable prices. Unfortunately, most of the test results through labcorp and other companies were taking at least a week for results. I based my early treatment recommendations on my clinical judgement. Most people with covid, prior to the omicron variant, experienced loss of smell and taste pretty early in their disease course, so I was able to recommend hydroxychloroquine and zinc quite early. Some patients were leery of trying the medications due to the national media coverage claiming that hydroxychloroquine was dangerous. By October 2020, we were able to order antigen tests for the office and offer them to patients at a fair price. We charged more for people who wanted immediate results but were not members of the practice. People in my community were grateful to have access to a test that would provide a quick result.

In early October, my oldest brother was exposed to covid. My sister in law had the virus, but she didn’t know. She did not test herself very early, because her only symptom was a headache. By the time she tested positive, her symptoms had resolved. My brother was 57 years old at the time and high risk due to insulin resistance and a 50 pack year smoking history. He was in the process of an evaluation for possible lymphoma at that time, and his spleen biopsy had already been postponed numerous times. On day 5-6 of his illness he contacted me and tested positive that day. His physician would not see him in the office and did not offer him any treatment. By this time, he had a fever and a mild cough but no shortness of breath. Several physicians in the early treatment group contacted me to help treat him, including Dr. Peter McCullough. We aggressively treated him, but on day 10, he was having trouble breathing and oxygen was in the high 80s while ambulatory. He presented to the hospital alone (my sister in law was not allowed to enter the hospital despite being covid recovered and asymptomatic), and he was not admitted. Two days later his condition worsened and he was hospitalized and started on high flow oxygen. He received the standard protocol at that time, including remdesivir, dexamethasone, and plasma and eventually was discharged home. His follow up care was inadequate and he bounced back to the hospital with inflammatory pneumonia 2 weeks later. He struggled with fatigue for months, which could have been due to “long covid” or possibly due to his undiagnosed B cell lymphoma. Eventually, his symptoms resolved and he was diagnosed and treated for his lymphoma and he is doing well now. He was coerced into taking the Moderna vaccine, despite his documented immunity and persistent high nucleocapsid antibody levels.

In November 2020, my medical assistants contracted covid, despite following all CDC recommended precautions. We wore masks, our patients wore masks, and we tested patients with typical covid symptoms outside in the parking lot, donning full PPE. Both of my MAs had flu-like symptoms and I treated them with hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, prednisone, zinc, vitamin C, vitamin D, and aspirin. While working alone in my office, I had a mild headache and sneezed a few times, so I decided to test myself and tested positive. At 50 years old, I decided to take hcq and zinc, vitamin D, and vitamin C daily and never developed symptoms beyond some mild fatigue. Because we knew by this time that metabolic syndrome and elevated glucose could worsen covid, I decided to wear a glucose monitor and avoid sugar and carbs for at least a week. In addition, I walked outside 2-5 miles daily. My husband was sent home for 10 days from work due to his exposure, but he never tested positive or developed symptoms. I did not isolate myself from him or my kids during my “illness,” nor did I wear a mask in my own home. I was able to work from home and see most of my patients by telemedicine. I avoided exposing my elderly parents and my mother in law, who lives with us. I treated Chris and his mom with prophylactic dose of hydroxychloroquine and vitamins. Neither of my sons contracted the virus from me.

Throughout the fall and winter of 2020, I treated several of my patients early with hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin or doxycycline, steroids, aspirin and vitamins (McCullough protocol) with good results. One of my patients was hospitalized, despite early treatment. He had several comorbidities, including diabetes, hypertension and smoking history, and he did not start outpatient treatment until day 5. He is doing well now, and so far he has been able to keep working without having to get a vaccine he does not need.

Throughout 2020, I was also a vocal supporter of the Great Barrington Declaration and advocated locally for ending all covid mandates, especially for kids. Physicians and scientists like me who were reviewing the data knew that our response was not working to prevent SARS-Cov-2 spread, and was already harming people in many ways, both physically and psychologically. Prior to 2020, physicians and epidemiologists like myself, knew that “lockdown” policies and masking did nothing to stop the spread of airborne respiratory viruses. However, I was hopeful and optimistic about the potential of a “vaccine.”

In November 2020, I joined MyFreeDoctor as a consultant and started treating patients by telemedicine. I have treated over 2000 patients and only one person died after hospitalization and remdesivir treatment. Unfortunately, he sought care late in his disease course and we were unable to avoid hospitalization in his case. Like many people who died from COVID, he was elderly and had several comorbidities. I am honored to be an author, along with several highly credentialed physicians on Dr. McCullough’s paper—Multifaceted highly targeted sequential multidrug treatment of early ambulatory high-risk SARS-CoV-2 infection (covid-19).

In early 2021, like most physicians, I was cautiously optimistic that the new “vaccines” would finally provide a way out of the pandemic and end all restrictions, which we knew by then were ineffective and harmful to public health in general. I recommended the vaccine to my parents and my mother in law and scheduled their dosing appointments for them. My husband was eligible for a vaccine very early, since he was a first responder, and I was unsure what to recommend to him. However, many of his colleagues got a shot without suffering any adverse reactions. He decided to get the first shot, and he tolerated it well, without even arm soreness. He was given Moderna number one in January 2021. By March, several patients had received a shot and were quite sick for days, complaining of high fevers and fatigue that interfered with daily functioning. Several patients got shingles after injection, and one patient developed Bell’s Palsy. For this reason, I opted not to get the vaccine. Based on my knowledge of immunology and data available at the time, I believed the risks outweighed any potential benefit in my case. Thankfully, as a self employed outpatient physician, I was not forced to get a vaccine that clearly I did not need. Because we started to see some reports of Guillian Barre syndrome with Moderna vaccines, my husband was able to get a medical exemption and avoid any further experimental shots. He was paralyzed with GBS at age 11 after a severe case of chicken pox.

I continued to recommend the experimental injections to my high risk patients who had not recovered from covid, but I strongly recommended testing for immunity prior to vaccination. Many patients received the shot irrespective of my advice. I saw my role as providing information and presenting data and allowing my patients to make an informed choice. We did not provide the injections in our office, due to government red tape. Many people in Kentucky were skeptical of the new vaccines, understandably, as they had already realized that the FDA and CDC were changing their recommendations frequently. Most people suspected, with good reason, that the government was corrupted by pharmaceutical dollars and they recognized that the pandemic had been politicized from the beginning. Contempt and judgement directed toward people who were skeptical, from media, bureaucrats, and unfortunately from medical professionals, did not help regain the trust of thousands of people who were aware by this time that many lies were told and several reputable scientists were silenced.

Thankfully, my patients trusted my advice, which was based on the data, not politics or an obvious narrative. Many of my patients continued to wear masks throughout most of 2021, but my staff and I did not wear a mask unless it made a particular patient feel more comfortable. I educated patients who were fearful, and I offered on several occasions to educate members of my community in public forums, such as school board meetings.

In April 2021, my children finally returned to daily school. They both attended public school in Oldham County, Kentucky and had been on a “hybrid” schedule since late August 2020. They were required to wear masks daily while at school and on the bus. They were forced to follow ridiculous rules during that school year, including keeping their distance and wearing a mask in the hallway, while they were permitted to sit next to each other maskless in the cafeteria. My son was a JV wrestler, and several of their tournaments were canceled due to random positive covid tests among asymptomatic students and/or exposures to SARS-Cov-2. They were permitted to wrestle maskless but they were not permitted to shake hands at the end of a match. As a logical, highly educated person, these senseless rules were very frustrating for me. When I visited Washington, DC in April 2021, I realized that we were relatively sane and fortunate here in Kentucky.

Our school board had a change of leadership in spring 2021, and several school board meetings were attended by angry parents who were frustrated by the decline in the quality of education being provided to their kids and by the many consequences they were starting to see among their kids. As a family physician, I noticed an uptick in new anxiety and depression diagnoses among children (and adults) in my practice as well as complaints most likely related to mask wearing. Disabled kids, for example kids with hearing loss and or learning disabilities suffered more than most kids. Jefferson County (Louisville) schools never returned to full time in person school in 2021, and the statistics on learning loss are catastrophic. Homicides, shootings, suicides, and mental health diagnoses increased significantly among adolescents in the city, like many cities with similar draconian policies. I decided to attend the school board meetings to offer my opinion based on my experience treating covid and my education in medicine, immunology, and epidemiology, which was welcomed by most people but unappreciated by a few fearful people in our community. From the beginning of the pandemic, I had emailed the Board Superintendent and the Director of Public Health in Oldham County to offer my perspective. I was surprised to find that I was wasting my time. I believe that the “narrative” around covid and the mitigation measures was scripted and organized at the state and Federal level. A handful of fearful community members were adamantly against my opinions on anything covid related, and unfortunately, they targeted me and my family on social media and tried to negatively review my business online. Fortunately, I never felt endangered as most attacks were online. However, one individual decided to reveal my husband’s occupation on her Twitter feed and malign him and me. I applied for an open position on the School Board summer of 2021 and was not chosen.

In June of 2021, I testified as an expert in a case against Governor Beshear, in Northern Kentucky, brought by a small business that had struggled due to the Governors mandates. Thankfully, the plaintiff won the case and the Judge declared that the Governor did not have the authority to enact his broad sweeping mandates. While he would no longer have the power to limit businesses in their capacity or mandate mask wearing within all indoor spaces, he would find ways, in collaboration with the Kentucky Department of Education, to force certain districts to mandate masks for more than a year.

By July 2021, I was starting to see patients with covid breakthrough cases. Many of them were sicker than I would have expected them to be, if the vaccine truly delivered on it’s promise to reduce the severity of infection. I continued to offer early outpatient treatment to my patients and online with MyFreeDoctor during the delta wave and only one patient required a brief hospitalization. I started to warn friends and family members that the vaccines did not prevent infection and asked them to contact me if/when they became infected. Some of my friends were skeptical of my advice and remained very trusting of the vaccines. As bureaucrats and the Biden administration started to talk about the possibility of vaccine mandates and other countries started to implement vaccine passports, it became even clearer that the entire pandemic was not about science but about control. I spent many hours in church and praying for God to guide me in how to continue to speak truth without fear.

In August 2021, my kids were scheduled to restart school with a mask optional policy. Two days before school started, our school board reinstated a mask mandate. In a supposed effort to keep kids in school, since by now it was clear that keeping them out of school and doing hybrid learning was a colossal failure, the Kentucky Department of Education and the Governor of Kentucky offered money to all schools who would implement “test to stay” programs for kids. Only districts with mask mandates would be eligible for the funding. I obtained mask exemptions for both kids from their physician. Several people, some patients, contacted me requesting mask exemptions for their kids. I was able to provide exemptions for several of my patients, who were clearly suffering negative health consequences from masking. I was shocked to find that my opinion on masks was in the minority among many of my colleagues in Kentucky.

In the fall of 2021, my youngest son started to show some signs of anxiety and depression, and he revealed that he was being harassed by teachers and staff at his school due to his mask exemption. For this reason, he would often wear the mask, despite his legitimate medical exemption. His peers did not say anything to him about the exemption, but several teachers made inappropriate comments and treated him differently compared to other students. When we realized the distractions of unscientific covid policy was impeding his learning, we disenrolled him from public school and started homeschooling him. Though challenging, I do not regret that decision. I believe in public education; both my husband and I are public school educated. Therefore, I will continue to attend school board meetings and remain active in electing representatives who will listen to actual data in the future. The people who continued to harm kids in Kentucky, while neighboring Indiana had vastly different policies with similar covid outcomes, must be held accountable for the damage they have done.

When I was not chosen to be on the school board, I was not disappointed but rather relieved. I trusted God’s plan, and I realized that the school board members were merely puppets in a much larger agenda at the state level. However, in the fall of 2021, a physician vacancy opened on the Oldham County Board of Health, for which I applied. Despite endorsement by our local Judge Executive and my numerous qualifications and experience, the Board did not choose me. Instead, they chose a physician who does not reside in our county who happens to believe and promulgate the “Fauci” and public health establishment narrative on the pandemic. I was told that my views are too controversial. Nonetheless, I informed the Medical Director that I am available if the Board decides to consider the actual data in their future covid policies and other future pandemic/epidemic policies. To this date, as more information emerges regarding the pandemic, futility of lockdowns, devastation of school closures, negative effects of masks and vaccines, I am not aware of one person in leadership apologizing for being wrong and promising to never blindly trust recommendations coming from partisan, corrupt Federal organizations. Americans understandably do not trust the FDA, CDC or the medical establishment. It will take decades to reform these institutions and rebuild trust in government and in the medical/public health profession.

Both of my children finally contracted covid in August 2021. Teddy, my oldest son, had mild cold symptoms and low grade fever, but his rapid covid test was negative at my office. He missed school on a Monday, but I sent him back to school on Tuesday, since he felt better and was afebrile for more than 24 hours (and he was negative for covid). On Wednesday, the school called and asked me to pick him up due to an exposure to another student who had tested positive for covid. This particular student was also vaccinated. Out of curiosity, I drove him to my office and tested him again. Despite the absence of symptoms, he tested positive for covid. If I had followed school protocol, he would have remained at home for another 10 days following this test, but I am well trained in medicine, immunology, and virology and understood that he had a false negative test earlier in the week. Prior to this pandemic, physicians used our clinical judgement to diagnose upper respiratory illness. We did not automatically order flu, strep, or other testing on all patients, because we understood that pre-test probability is important and that no test is 100% accurate. We NEVER tested asymptomatic people for flu or strep, and we did not recommend quarantine of healthy family members who were merely exposed to flu or strep. Most likely, my sons had the delta variant, and I did not contract it from them, thanks to my immunity from prior infection. In October 2021, my SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid antibodies remained positive. My husband and my mother in law did not contract the virus from my sons at this time either. In November 2021, my husband finally developed mild symptoms of covid and tested positive. He was treated with early outpatient treatment (McCullough protocol + FLCCC protocol) and he had a mild course with the delta variant (likely, cannot confirm).

Over the past year, my opinion of the experimental covid vaccine has changed significantly, particularly with the emergence of the omicron variant. Clearly, the vaccines did not deliver on the promise of “ending the pandemic,” and thousands of people have been harmed in the United States as a result of the vaccine, including children. In our small community in Kentucky, I know of several covid injection injuries, including a young person who was hospitalized with pericarditis. She was previously healthy and likely would have experienced mild symptoms with covid, but she was forced by her employer to get the covid vaccine. I remain unvaccinated as do my two kids. I joined thousands of physicians in urging cessation of mass vaccination of kids with the covid vaccines. I have encouraged friends and family members with kids to demand informed consent from a critical thinking physician. Many of my friends did vaccinate their kids for covid, despite my recommendation and caution. Thankfully, none of their kids were harmed to my knowledge.

Going forward, I hope to work with patriotic physicians to help free them from the medical establishment and help them start direct care practices throughout the United States. I plan to remain vocal in my community and state to ensure that the damage inflicted on young people is never repeated. With faith, not fear, I trust that eventually, we will be successful in restoring liberty in our country. I’m grateful for like minded patriotic physicians who continue to honor the Hippocratic oath and risk their careers in pursuit of truth. I’m also grateful for fearless leaders like Governor DeSantis, who listened to scientists/doctors with integrity, like Dr. Atlas, Dr. Battacharya, Dr. McCullough, Dr. Cole, Dr. Farella, etc. who revealed the truth about the pandemic and provided an excellent control group in Florida to compare to the insane restrictions and consequences in other states. While I have no idea what the motivation has been for the many lies told by government bureaucrats, politicians, and supposed reputable physicians, I believe that the truth will reveal itself. Recently, I can feel God working to reveal truth and to call us closer to him. We must continue to fearlessly share the truth with our colleagues, friends and family members in order to salvage our freedom.