Health

Shenell Mobley, a library circulation clerk in Jacksonville, Texas, is working hard to live a healthier life and care for her growing family. Thanks to successful gastric sleeve surgery by Keith Charles, MD, and Mobley’s efforts to improve her lifestyle and eating habits, the future looks brighter for the 29-year-old. It wasn’t always this bright.…

Do you know the warning signs for a stroke? Would you recognize them in someone else? What about yourself? We often think if something like a stroke has occurred, we would realize it immediately, right? As it turns out, nearly 70 percent of people who have suffered a minor stroke don’t recognize the symptoms at…

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in both men and women; it is also the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, a month set aside to increase awareness and education of colon cancer. According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, almost half (47%)…

Rob Taylor was doing almost everything right. For 15 years, the 59-year-old Bullard resident worked out in the gym at least three times a week with his personal trainer. He didn’t smoke and recently added playing in a senior softball league to his list of activities. Though he weighed around 250 pounds, Taylor carried it…

Despite the obstacles she has faced throughout her life, Joanna Blundell is only looking forward. “I don’t have time to look backward,” said Blundell, a 57-year-old resident of Ore City. “I always try to be positive and move forward.” Diagnosed at age two with cerebral palsy, a group of disorders that affect a person’s ability…

Preventable, early deaths have happened too many times in Louis Ashley’s family. “I’ve lost three of my four brothers,” said Ashley, a 51-year-old fluids engineer with a Texas oil company. “One drank himself to death, another died by suicide and one died in a car wreck. I suppose I’m the one who can change his…

For Sam Steele, 72, a retired Presbyterian minister living in Hallsville, his heart health has been a constant concern for him and his family. Fortunately, he is now receiving care from the Pritikin Intensive Cardiac Rehab (ICR) program at UT Health East Texas Rehabilitation Center. “Heart disease runs in my family,” said Sam. “My father…

For the Dixon household in Palestine, the day usually starts with mom, dad and their two kids getting dressed and heading out to work and school. However, one morning in February, everyone left the house except mom, who wasn’t feeling well. Leah Dixon, 40, the chief operating officer of the UT Health East Texas Physicians…

When you are sick at home and cannot get out to visit a healthcare provider, there is now a service that helps you get personalized healthcare in the comfort of your own home: on-demand video visits. Leah Dixon, chief operating officer of UT Health East Texas Physicians, said the service is convenient and very easy…

Melisa Collum is very familiar with being inside a hospital. After working at hospitals in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and then Wheeling, West Virginia, Collum moved to East Texas to care for her mother. She continued her nursing career at UT Health Athens where she worked on the medical/surgical floor, the intensive care unit and the emergency…