Hi all!
Over the next two posts I am going to introduce myself and my business partner, Dr. Brown, along with our families. It is my hope that by getting to know us you will get to see the heart of our company and what we are all about!
Part I : My name is Kristen Barkley. I have had the joy of being married to my handsome best friend {and very own personal comedian}, John Paul, for over 11 years now. Although our life isn’t always perfect, we have made more than our fair share of good memories and have managed to weather the storms together. He is the perfect compliment to my serious, Type A, {okay, maybe slightly neurotic} personality, and I am constantly reminded of how blessed I am to have him and his carefree self as my soulmate! He brings peace and laughter to our messy, sometimes chaotic life, and I will forever be grateful to him for that!
We agree that our biggest accomplishment and most significant contribution to this world by far is our amazing legacy, our children: Joshua (almost 7), Ashtyn (5), Everett (3), and Brooks (~ 10 months). Honestly, we don’t even know how we could have produced four beautiful, bright, and witty kids, and better yet what God was thinking when He entrusted them to us!?!? We are all too often reminded of how heavy that responsibility really is, and only by His grace have we done anything right up unto this point!! We are so very proud of them, not because of anything that we have done or will do for them, but because of everything He is doing in them and through them! What an incredible thing to witness and be a part of!
Part II: Onto the business….
My interest in nutrition started long before I had kids, but it seems that with the birth of each child and the many challenges I have encountered as a parent, my passion for all things holistic continues to grow exponentially. One specific life event really stands out as the major turning point for me regarding my approach to keeping my family well and could maybe be considered the seed that eventually grew into Marpé.
When my oldest son was only 5 months old, he came down with a rare condition called Kawasaki’s syndrome. He got very sick, and I was honestly scared for his life. We all were. After a week of high fever and a myriad of other mysterious symptoms, he finally was diagnosed, checked into the hospital, and treated with IVIG (intravenous immunoglobulin, aka donor antibodies). After two days, his condition finally started to improve, and we began to see our sweet baby come back. Unfortunately our nightmare wasn’t over yet. The sickness left him with significantly dilated coronary arteries, and the doctors were worried he may have a lifelong heart condition impacting his ability to participate in anything athletic and greatly increasing his chances for aneurysms and other life-threatening problems. We were devastated.
Enter Dr. Brown. Not long after our traumatic stent in the hospital, my mom (who was battling Lyme’s disease at the time and has her own story of healing through natural medicine) encouraged us to take sweet little Joshua to this amazing doctor over at North Dallas Alternative Medicine Center. Anyway… long story short {or is it too late for that?!} Joshua was miraculously given a clean bill of health after just 6 short months of Dr. Brown’s unique combination of alternative treatments including nutrition, herbs, chiropractic, and homeopathy. As you can imagine, we were sold!
Dr. Brown, who I am excited to introduce to you in the near future, changed our lives. I never could have imagined the resource and blessing he would become to my family. It was his knowledge and personal convictions that inspired me to become not just an interested mom but an informed and empowered mom. I began to do my own research and grew bold enough to care for my family in ways that were different than the mainstream.
With my formal education in business marketing, it wasn’t long before I realized that there were others out there walking along their own path towards holistic and clean living who could benefit from everything Dr. Brown stands for and practices. I had to find a way to share what I had learned and what Dr. Brown had spent years researching to the masses. And so we have gotten back to the birth of Marpé …
Thanks for sticking with me! I know I can be long-winded. 😉 Stay tuned to meet the Browns…
Good night!
Kristen
[…] Kristen introduced me to natural medicine and the Dr. Brown Diet. She gave me guidelines for Dr. Brown’s approved diet, and I began cooking paleo for them. It was a drastic change from my world. I grew up in fried food and big home cooked meals full of carbs and cheese. I tasted some of the food I cooked, and it was good. But I wanted to make it great. I started cooking trying to make each and every meal a Dr. Brown approved meal but to still taste as delicious as if it had been cooked with just any old processed ingredients. […]