Stafford Family Care

Stafford Family Care The Official page for Stafford Family Care, formerly Nurse Debi’s Health & Wellness

12/23/2025

Happy almost-Christmas!!! Today is Tuesday, 12/23. We will be closing at noon tomorrow and be essentially closed until Monday, 1/5. We have a few telehealth slots for 12/29 and 1/2. If you want one of those slots please call NOW, 865-340-6346.

Monday, January 5 we will be hitting the ground running!!!!

12/19/2025

Hey everyone, Nurse Debi here!!! Next week is Christmas week. We will be closing at noon on Christmas Eve. We will be closed for the most part until Monday, January 5 to allow time for family.

We will have limited telehealth available over the holiday. It will be for acute needs only. If you do not call us NOW for an appointment next week, there's a good chance we won't be able to help you until January 5.

Please, please do not delay. Call us now, 865-340-6346 and it IS text-friendly. I will work hard to see as many as I can on Monday and Tuesday, but by Wednesday we will be closed.

We will be sending an email out this afternoon. We will have this on our clinic website, as well. Please call NOW.

Call now. 865-340-6346.

Please. Pretty please. Call now.

Did I mention you should call now??

12/15/2025

Hello everyone, Nurse Debi here. In an effort to share more with our services, I wanted to remind everyone we do joint injections. I just today did PRP (Plasma Rich Platelets) in a hip and knee. We can also do steroid and even NSAID injections into hips to help with pain.

Just give us a call, 865-340-6346 if you are in pain and want relief.

12/15/2025

Happy Monday! We had some last-minute cancellations for the afternoon, so if you have a need, please call us at 865-340-6346.

Congratulations to Nurse Debi for running in a 5K race on Saturday morning! More proof that we " practice what we preach...
12/13/2025

Congratulations to Nurse Debi for running in a 5K race on Saturday morning! More proof that we " practice what we preach " at Stafford Family Care!

12/12/2025

Hey everyone! Respiratory illnesses are picking up. Here are some recommendations for when to go to the ER:

Fever over 104 that doesn't respond to fever reducer after 1-2 hours.

Retractions that don't improve with a breathing treatment. Retractions look like the belly/chest is jerking with each breath.

A pulse oximeter ( the little finger thingy we put on you to check your oxygen) showing oxygen less than 90%.

Gray/blue lips/fingertips.

Babies with urine output less than half their normal diapers.

ANYTHING ELSE THAT MAKES YOUR PARENT GUT GO OFF.

While we want to prevent the over-utilization of the ER, we also do not want care delayed when it's emergent.

When to bring in kids to see us:

Fever lasting longer than 72 hours.

Cough getting worse over 4-5 days.

Coughing up lots of mucus

Anything else that makes you wonder if you should bring in your child to see us.

I hope this helps!

12/11/2025

Hey everyone. We are short-staffed today due to illness. Nurse Debi & Nurse Jinny are here, Jennifer is here, but the one, the only Glen is double-duty with desk and phones. Please be patient with us! Remember, we are text-friendly if you need something. Glen will respond as quickly as he can.

Thanks everyone!

12/10/2025

Leucovorin is now on backorder everywhere, is what we are being told.

In a couple hours it will be December 10. So this is my annual day to tell a story. On December 10, 2014 Glen didn’t cal...
12/10/2025

In a couple hours it will be December 10. So this is my annual day to tell a story.

On December 10, 2014 Glen didn’t call me like he normally did. He was still living in Vermont. So I called him. His voice was slurring. He said his ear was ringing and his arm was numb. At the time I was working as an RN. My nurse gut told me he was having a stroke. But the girlfriend in me kept thinking, “But he’s 44, never a smoker, healthy, no high blood pressure. He can’t be.” But the RN in me took over.

He was in the middle of a blizzard. There was no EMS. I called his parents. His dad went right over, took one look at his son with the facial droop. Glen could barely stand at that point. Moe grabbed Glen and got him to the truck, and Glen called me. I could hear Glen’s voice fading as we talked until the phone went dead. Moe flew in the snow to the nearest ER one town away and ran in and announced his son was having a stroke. Stroke protocols were immediately started.

The CT revealed something terrible — Glen’s stroke was so severe it would likely prove fatal. You see, the initial ischemia doesn’t kill as many immediately as the damage does over hours and days. The tPA wasn’t going to be enough. They loaded Glen up, who was intubated by then because he lost the ability to breathe on his own, and drove him the 40 minutes away to the big hospital, UVM. The blizzard was so bad highway patrol shut down the interstate but they were told a young guy was being transported in an attempt to save his life. The highway patrol held the interstate open long enough for the ambulance to arrive.

A thrombectomy was performed. They went into his brain to pull out the clot. He awoke a few hours later unable to move his left side. He couldnt swallow food or speak.

I had already booked a flight to Vermont, and then my connecting flight from DC was cancelled due to the blizzard, so I bought a train ticket. That train had to stop in Albany because one ahead derailed and then I was put on a bus until I got off in Port Charlotte where Glen’s brother got me the last leg and to the hospital. When I got there, almost 40 hours later, I saw the man of my dreams unable to move half his body.

Glen spent 30 days in in-patient rehab learning to walk, move his left hand, and speak/eat again. When he was released, he came to TN to begin his life with me & my daughters, something we were planning before his stroke. He was still in a wheelchair.

UVM refused to do a clotting study. As soon as Glen got to TN I established him with a physician who was more than happy to do a coagulation study. Glen has a genetic clotting disorder no one in his family knew about until we tested him.

Over the months following his stroke he was able to ditch the wheelchair. He was able to walk with a cane, then independently. He drove 8 months after his stroke. He climbed House Mountain in the late summer. He completed a 5k with me fall 2015. We married in October 2016.

I share this story because still, to this day, people ignore signs of a stroke. Had we ignored the signs, I wouldn’t have my Glen. It is so vitally important if you or a loved one experiences numbness/tingling on one side of the body, facial drooping, and/or speech problems, and headache, it is vitally important to call 911 and go to a hospital that has stroke protocols in place. Here in Knoxville I would only go to Fort Sanders or UT Hospital. If you are outside of the Knoxville area, find out which hospitals in your area are stroke-accredited.

I hope everyone enjoys this story as much as I love Glen.

12/09/2025

Happy Tuesday! In reviewing our slots for 2026, we also have a few IV infusion slots.

Why might a person want/need an IV? Maybe you're under the weather and want an antioxidant boost with some good glutathione, vitamin C, and/or zinc. Or, maybe you want to look good for that special night and want to make your skin glow and hair and nails at their best with some biotin. Or, maybe you fight hydration from your workout routine and want some extra fluids and B vitamins to help boost you before a race or event.

Maybe you have chronically low ferritin, don't respond to oral iron, and you don't have health insurance. Our infusions are half the price of other locations we checked here in town.

You are under zero obligation for our IVs as far as how often you come in. We can do memberships if you would like a monthly plan, or you can pay ala carte.

Feel free to give us a call or text to learn more, 865-340-6346. And check out our Stafford Medispa page for more services.

12/08/2025

Happy Monday everyone! In looking ahead for 2026, we have a few remaining slots for hormone pellet therapy from Nurse Debi. Hormone pellet therapy is generally done every 3 months for women, and every 3-4 months for men.

Why hormone pellets? Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) can be life-changing for women who are going through/have gone through menopause or men who have declining testosterone from aging. Some prefer the pellets because for a quick 20-30 minute insertion you don't have to worry with messy creams or remember to take a pill daily. We only use bio-identical pellets.

Give us a call if you want to discuss it further, 865-340-6346. We would love to get those slots filled so you can start off the new year feeling great!

Address

Knoxville, TN

Opening Hours

Monday 8:30am - 12pm
1pm - 5pm
Tuesday 8:30am - 12pm
1pm - 5pm
Wednesday 8:30am - 12pm
1pm - 5pm
Thursday 8:30am - 12pm
1pm - 5pm
Friday 8:30am - 12pm
1pm - 5pm

Telephone

+18653406346

Website

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We are bringing common sense back to health care

We began in the summer of 2018. We were tired of waiting for hours for patients to be seen. We were tired of overbooking, grumpy staff, automated phone trees, insurance codes, and poor management decisions. Mostly, we were tired of patients not getting the care they deserved. We decided to do something about it.

We started a different kind of health care. We started the kind of health care where the patient’s time is just as important as the provider’s time. We created a phone line that gets answered by staff or has a simple voicemail. We stopped overbooking. We make sure our staff understands the customer is to be treated with dignity and respect. We kicked insurance to the curb and set our prices low enough where most can afford. We strive to treat our patients as we want to be treated.

We welcome you to contact us. We see all patients of all ages, abilities, and respect patient autonomy.