My brothers and I. Aaron (middle), Luke (right) and Alex.
Visual Medical was inspired
by many brave individuals who have managed severe, chronic illness with
tremendous perseverance and unbelievable grace. It is our mission to
discover and develop products through medically sound approaches
for disease management incorporating the importance of:
- Education-
To streamline teaching of disease self-management techniques with
tangible and efficient methods to promote the best self-care possible.
- Accessibility-
For our products to be understood, easily accessed and utilized across
age, cultural, socio-economic background and cognitive ability.
- Empowerment- By providing tools for innovative and creative chronic disease management.
The story that built Visual Medical begins with my experience as a
sibling to brothers who were medically complex. Fate would have it that
my youngest brother’s life was almost taken from him during a near SIDS
episode at 3 months old, as a result
Alex suffered from a severe lack of oxygen. For 20 years he has
utilized a wheelchair, dependent to be fed, bathed or moved in any way.
He does not have the ability to communicate verbally, however we know by
the twinkle in his eye he possesses deep understanding
for the workings of the world around him. Our family dynamic changed
again, when my brother Luke was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the
age of 5. He has shown a tremendous amount of resilience throughout his
life, faithfully checking his glucose levels
and administering insulin numerous times a day. Despite the daily
demand of managing his diabetes, Luke has an easy laugh and is one of
the most wonderful young men I know. My parents had the superhuman
task of care-taking 4 children, two of which
had complicated life consuming medical conditions. At best things were
hectic; however my parents took the task head on creating their own
systems to keep track of the enormity of health related duties. Through
all this they searched for ways to soften the
blows, laugh and have fun. My siblings and I learned priceless lessons
on empathy and flexibility, encouraging us to give the world a deeper
look and with open hearts embrace need around us.
I now have
three beautiful boys of my own, of whom my
oldest, Carter, is on the autism spectrum. In addtion to social delays,
his physical health has also presented challenges, struggling with
asthma, neurological tics, Graves disease and other rheumatologic
issues. He is brilliantly smart, funny and a
very important part of our family, though his care takes careful
thought and consideration. Our lives became more complicated 2 years ago
upon the diagnosis of my husband’s stage 4 lymphoma. During his
treatment, I tried my hardest to keep on top of
his care, however sometimes the enormity of our situation was lost on
people and medical staff would become impatient when we were late for an
appointment or would misstep in some other minor issue. I wished there
was a way for them to gain insight into the
complexity or our lives and understand we were doing the best we could.
Having
10 years of experience in the healthcare field has brought a unique
understanding to the medical diagnoses of my loved ones. I knew the
medical community could do better,
when my husband's complicated lab and chemo schedule involved running
with our little ones for hours at a time, or when Carter received his
autism diagnosis - being abruptly presented with a handbook and sent on
my way. There was room to try harder, empathize
more and dig deeper to provide better, more holistic care.
Inspired
by my parents, brothers, son, husband and patients I have cared for
over the years. I want to make chronic disease management easier. In the
crazy of everyday life, I want families
to feel
successful and
competent when taking care of themselves or a loved one and maybe have some fun while doing it.
In
the next few days I will be posting
images of our first product offering TARTOOS. Visual Medical has a goal
to keep this product at no or minimal cost to the patients who would
utilize it. In order for this to happen-i
nterest has to be sparked!
We are hoping by the power of social media our story will be
shared and we can create a fire under our little business. We have set a
goal of having
20,000 individuals
register on our LaunchRock site. Registration only will present us with
documented interest for our product, your information will not be
shared, no obligation or purchases required. Once you have visited
http://tartoos.launchrock.com/ please fill in the required fields and repost on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest!
Rachael
jacquesrachael1@gmail.com
rj@myvisualmedical.com
(Scar tissue accumulation due to lack of injection site rotation,
this gentleman only injected immediately to the left and right of his naval for
30 plus years)
