Interim HealthCare Davis/Weber County

Interim HealthCare Davis/Weber County Interim HealthCare is improving people's lives with personalized care through clinical excellence.

Sweet support for every stage of the journey. 🍬 Happy Halloween! 🎃
10/31/2025

Sweet support for every stage of the journey.
🍬 Happy Halloween! 🎃

10/25/2025

Fitness and health. My name is Mike Hawkins, I am a retired, disabled veteran and own Interim HealthCare Utah. I was diagnosed with brain cancer at 49 years old and am writing short stories about my experiences through that challenge. I hope you find this beneficial. I have always been fit and enjoyed doing things that make me uncomfortable, partly to test myself and partly to see what happens. I pride myself on my health. I exercised in the gym, mostly lifting weights 4-5 times per week. I also played competitive baseball, I snow boarded, fly fished, and hiked a lot. I also enjoyed experimenting with various supplements and diets. I always maintained a body composition of 6% body fat. I really liked how I felt on a keto diet or after a 48 hour fast but found intermittent fasting to be a sustainable plan that fit my lifestyle. When I was 47 years old I was looking for an edge and a way to maintain my fitness and improve my energy so I started taking testosterone. I have a needle aversion so injecting myself the first couple times was hard, but I got used to it and was able to do it weekly. Results were apparent quickly–I grew muscle and lifts at the gym got easier, either able to do more weight and/or do more reps. I liked it a lot. As I got older, I always tried to be in what I called pre season shape, meaning I was fit enough to do anything but also not in shape for everything. For example, just because I could run for miles, I would also get very winded early in snowboarding season because I was not in snowboarding shape. Brain cancer was hard, but my fitness made it easier, I was much more resilient to the harsh drugs. I am disabled and I fall often, but because of my former athleticism, I am falling without getting hurt. I got brain cancer at 49 so I stopped the testosterone even though doctors said it does not correlate. Cancer left me pretty disabled so going to the gym was hard and frustrating. I can’t walk 30 seconds on a treadmill without holding on and all gripping or pushing exercises are not possible. Being idol was hard on me mentally. I never gained or lost much weight, always around 180 pounds, but a much softer 180 pounds. I saw an advertisement for Katalyst, an Electro Magnetic Stimulation suit that stimulates the muscles as if under load, but without the pressure on joints from weights. Doing Katalyst for the first time felt like lifting weights and I was whole body sore. Each workout is 20 minutes and the movements simulate the real movements, like squats, bench press, curls. I also bought a Concept 2 rowing machine as it is the only cardio I can do. I row 3-4 days per week and do Katalyst twice and exercise my abs every day. I have gotten leaner and gained 9 pounds in 4 months, amazing!!

10/24/2025

Stress and Worry. My name is Mike Hawkins, I am a retired, disabled veteran and own Interim HealthCare Utah. I was diagnosed with brain cancer at 49 years old and am writing short stories about my experiences through that challenge. I hope you find this beneficial. I don’t stress or worry about most things for 3 main reasons: First most of the things people worry about never happen. Second–when things do happen it rarely happens the way you thought it would. Finally, I have lived enough life and dealt with enough things that I feel no matter what happens, I can handle it. The one thing I always worry about is if something goes wrong, it better not be because I messed up. My favorite scene of all movies is in the movie The Right Stuff. In it Alan Shepard is about to be the first American launched into space and the likelihood of a catastrophic failure and death was high. He said a short prayer: “Dear Lord, please don’t let me f**k up.” He didn’t care if he blew up and died, just don’t let it be his fault. This is such beautiful ownership.

10/23/2025

Kentucky Derby, BirthDay and a Beautiful Mustache! My name is Mike Hawkins, I am a retired, disabled veteran and own Interim HealthCare Utah. I was diagnosed with brain cancer at 49 years old and am writing short stories about my experiences through that challenge. I hope you find this beneficial. 6 months after my bone marrow transplant, I was still very physically disabled–I was using a wheelchair full time. My 50th birthday happened to be on the same day as the Kentucky Derby so we decided to have a party. Our Derby parties have become a thing we get excited for every year. We dress up, Natalie wore a very cute white and pink dress and big pink hat. I wore a pink suit, pink bow tie and pink derby hat–we were adorable. My buddy Mike Bridges made pimento sandwiches, we had chicken nuggets, deserts and of course mint juleps. Mint Juleps are 100% gross so we had a lemonade version that was much more drinkable. I had a mustache going through chemo, I refused to shave thinking the chemo would kill it. I wanted a mustache for the derby but seeing it gave Natalie some cancer PTSD. So I grew a beard. Before the derby we went to a barber. I told him Michelangelo aid every piece of stone has a statue inside and it’s the artist’s task to discover it. I told my barber the beard has a beautiful mustache inside and his task is to discover it. I said I wanted to look like a Civil War colonel. He did a beautiful job and my mustache was glorious.

10/22/2025

Should I buy a Land Rover Defender? My name is Mike Hawkins, I am a retired, disabled veteran and own Interim HealthCare Utah. I was diagnosed with brain cancer at 49 years old and am writing short stories about my experiences through that challenge. I hope you find this beneficial. I have always loved the look of rugged off road vehicles since I was in college. The first one I bought was a 1977 Toyota Landcruiser FJ40 I bought when I was accepted to Pilot Training in the Air Force as a reward to myself. It looked crappy–spray painted Army green, but it had a Corvette engine and driving around Las Vegas with the doors and top off is one of the coolest experiences of my life. My next one was a 1977 Toyota Landcruiser FJ40 that was beautiful orange, lifted with big tires, a Trans Am engine and automatic conversion, got it as a 40th birthday present to myself, a 40 for 40. I sold it before I got sick. Ever since I saw the Land Rover Defender I loved and wanted one. So laying in the hospital bed bored I decided to look one up. That led to a conversation and agreement with Von Dur Land Rovers in the Netherlands to import one from Spain, restore it and ship it to me. Natalie came into the hospital room where I told her I think I just bought a Defender and we had to wire some money. This was right after my first brain surgery. She thought I just got scammed but I was likely to die anyway so better to die happy and hopeful. Musa the owner of Von Dur sent me periodic updates and 2 years later the Defender arrived at my house. I changed the color several times from white to silver to gold/silver to green to blue to red. It’s red with brown leatherette and red stitching interior. It is a beautiful vehicle. When I registered it we told the guy at the DMV the story and he said the Defender was being restored while I was being restored--cool. Only issue is it is a manual transmission so with my right side disability driving it is possible but not as fun as I’d like it to be. I will convert it to automatic so it is easier and more fun to drive—it’s a big job but there is a very comprehensive kit. Our goal is to load the grandkids into the troop carrier like rear jump seats and go get ice cream.

Happy Medical Assistants Day to the multitasking masters of healthcare.
10/22/2025

Happy Medical Assistants Day to the multitasking masters of healthcare.

10/21/2025

Cleared!! My name is Mike Hawkins, I am a retired, disabled veteran and own Interim HealthCare Utah. I was diagnosed with brain cancer at 49 years old and am writing short stories about my experiences through that challenge. I hope you find this beneficial. Although I was cancer free, it definitely left it’s mark. Similar to a stroke, the cancer left me disabled. My right arm and leg are uncoordinated and weak, my speech is impaired and my balance is bad. Before cancer I prided myself on my physical ability. Adjusting to being disabled is redefining who I am. While I did not die from cancer, the person I thought I was did die. I started out patient physical therapy at Neuroworx, a great facility that specializes in neurological injuries, mostly spinal cord with a great physical therapist Emma Buckley. It was inspiring seeing the hard work others were doing and I hope my effort and attitude inspired them too. There was a study on stroke victims that elevating the heart rate to 85% of max for 30 minutes improved the brains ability to learn. So that’s what we did 3x per week–intense work on a Versa Climber, rowing machine, treadmill, or in the exercise pool that had jets and a treadmill. Midway through each workout they would ask me to rate the difficulty on a scale of 0-20 (easy to extremely difficult). 14 was the first number labeled hard. Never once did I say I was ever higher than 13. It became the goal of each therapist I worked with to get me to say it was hard, but I would never give them the satisfaction, even if I felt I might die which I did feel like a few times. I was scheduled for follow up MRIs and visits with my oncologist every 3 months.The week before the first one was an anxious time–the worry and fear of cancer returning is real and scary. They say if you have not had a recurrence in 2 years, odds ae in your favor and each year after that gets better. My physical therapy lasted for a year, then I took it upon myself to stay healthy. Going to the gym is hard with my disability so I now have a rowing machine, sauna and electrical stimulating exercise suit called Katalyst I do at home. I stopped taking all medications after about a year–I was on some nasty stuff, steroids, anti psychotic meds, etc. I now take about 17 supplements and exercise 5-6 days per week

Alzheimer’s is one of the leading causes of death among older adults, yet it often goes overlooked. We are walking to ra...
10/20/2025

Alzheimer’s is one of the leading causes of death among older adults, yet it often goes overlooked. We are walking to raise awareness, support research, and fight for change.

Join us or donate to help bring Alzheimer’s out of the shadows. https://alz.org/interimhealthcarewalk

10/20/2025

Nachos and Ice Cream. My name is Mike Hawkins, I am a retired, disabled veteran and own Interim HealthCare Utah. I was diagnosed with brain cancer at 49 years old and am writing short stories about my experiences through that challenge. I hope you find this beneficial. My appetite went way down through my 8 rounds of chemo. I craved hot and spicy food, the hotter the better. A local salsa called Dorado and jalapeno chips were my sitting on the couch snack. But what kept me alive was Costa Vida Nachos and Arctic Circle Reese's peanut butter cup shakes. Natalie and I ate both nachos then ice cream every day for probably 3 months. Then my craving turned to cheese pizza–we ate that every day for probably a month. The rest of the time, I was drinking clear boost. 6 months after my bone marrow transplant we were driving past Costa Vida and decided to stop for nachos. The one guy working had unusually high enthusiasm so we called him over while we ate to tell him how Costa Vida kept me alive. Turns out he was a regional manager named Mike Hopkins–I told him I have been called Mike Hopkins hundreds of times, he said he’s been called Mike Hawkins hundreds of times. He did make a good nacho plate.

10/19/2025

McRibs are gross, but funny (unless you are expecting pancakes). My name is Mike Hawkins, I am a retired, disabled veteran and own Interim HealthCare Utah. I was diagnosed with brain cancer at 49 years old and am writing short stories about my experiences through that challenge. I hope you find this beneficial. The hospital food in Huntsman Cancer Institute was good but with a weak appetite and an impulsive/ anxious brain it sometimes did not hit the mark. For some reason I craved spicy food through the treatment and hospital food is a bit bland. So when I would get a craving, we would jump on it quickly. I used Door Dash a lot, sometimes for me and Natalie, sometimes I would order Donuts for the staff. Due to the floor I was on and the pandemic, the delivery drivers had to leave food at the entrance and I would send staff down to get it for me. One day I had a massive craving for McDonalds breakfast so I ordered it and as so excited waiting for it. I see in the app that it has arrived, I send the nurse to get it, she returns with a McDonalds bag filled with 4 McRib sandwiches–I was devastated wondering how they could be this wrong. Unbeknownst to me, my best buddy Mike Bridges who did a Masters Degree study on the McRib, and was obsessed with the business side of the McRib had coincidentally delivered 4 of them at the exact same time I ordered my breakfast as a joke. The McRib and my breakfast bags were both at the entrance and the nurse grabbed the wrong one. When you rarely have an appetite and only want pancakes, a McRib Sandwich might be the grossest thing you could imagine. I eventually got my breakfast and the staff got the McRibs and we all got a good laugh.

10/18/2025

Bone marrow transplant. My name is Mike Hawkins, I am a retired, disabled veteran and own Interim HealthCare Utah. I was diagnosed with brain cancer at 49 years old and am writing short stories about my experiences through that challenge. I hope you find this beneficial. The final phase in my treatment for brain cancer was a bone marrow transplant which meant at least 30 days in a very secure lock down floor in the hospital–no visitors because patients are so vulnerable. The idea is to give a chemo treatment that activated the bone marrow to leach stem cells into the blood stream, then extract millions of them, then give a very ruthless chemo to kill everything in the body including any remnants of cancer, then infuse the stem cells back in so they could rebuild the body. Natalie is protective and persuasive–despite it being a very isolated floor during the early stages of a pandemic, she talked them into letting her stay with me on the condition she could not leave my room–for a month!! She is amazing! The 8 sessions of chemo was a walk in the park compared to this one, it was brutal. My tongue shed the entire surface (super gross!), I was nauseous and incontinent. The incontinence gave me the most anxiety and stress–it was awful. The chemo drug was so terrible, they told Natalie not to touch me. I was sweaty one night so she rubbed my head with her hand and it burned the skin on her hands. That’s the stuff they infused into my body. A definite scorched earth approach. I had an exercise bike in my room, but despite a lifetime of fitness, exercise was not on my agenda. Even walking the hallway was hard. Natalie created daily goals for me which I now appreciate but then hated. I am so glad Natalie committed to being with me–I was deeply motivated to endure because of her. Without her committing so much to me, I very likely would have given up. One day a bunch of staff barged into the room and started wheeling me out. When challenged by Natalie, they said the chemo had swollen my throat and my airway was shrinking, and was now too narrow to intubate me so they were going to give me a tracheotomy. She objected and I could not speak but wrote No Trach on a white board. She said I was breathing and she was watching me so if needed she would get them but for now, no trach. I am so glad to not have that additional complication. Slowly my markers started improving, the stem cells were working and I was getting stronger. I hated being in the hospital and begged every day to be released. The food at the Hunstman Cancer Institute was pretty good but it got old very fast. With a very low appetite I survived on Clear Boost--the chocolate and vanilla boost were too heavy for me, I threw them up 100% of the time. We had to order cases of clear boost online because you couldn't get it locally. One of our daily goals was to drink 6 boosts per day to get the minimum calories--super gross. So whenever a craving hit, we jumped on it and used Door Dash. Because of where we were and Covid, the delivery driver left my food at the entry and I had to send a nurse to get it. Memorable meals were McDonald's breakfast, Chipotle burrito bowls, Taco Time tacos. I eventually started to order food for the floor, donuts mostly. Finally they told me my body hit the right numbers and we could go home. I rang the cancer free bell and hit the road.

10/17/2025

Anxiety. My name is Mike Hawkins, I am a retired, disabled veteran and own Interim HealthCare Utah. I was diagnosed with brain cancer at 49 years old and am writing short stories about my experiences through that challenge. I hope you find this beneficial. A combination of brain cancer and steroids made me crazy. I had a weird anxious feeling all of the time. It felt like I was crawling out of my skin–I could not sit still for more than a minute and had to get up and move, which was super hard at the time. I would do laps around our apartment. The only thing that helped me was back tickles and car rides, Natalie and I drove on probably every road in Salt Lake City, we drove for hours and hours, stopping briefly to watch the sun set from the Old Mill Golf Course parking lot. Mid way through treatment they ordered a progress check MRI. I am not claustrophobic and MRIs don’t bother me, I usually just fall asleep, but this one I could not lay still–I was literally freaking out. Natalie was in the waiting room, the MRI team came running in and grabbed her saying she had to come right now! They brought Natalie in and she held my hand and practically climbed in the machine with me, holding my hand which calmed me down enough to finish. Anxiety like this is a terrible feeling! For head MRIs you lay on what is like the back of a helmet, then they add the front part so your head is locked in. If you're lucky your 'helmet' has a mirror so you can see your toes, that helps. I learned to control my anxiety by pretending to be an astronaut all alone in Space. Alan Shephard would not freak out by laying on a bed with a warm blanket inside of a tube. And if he wouldn't, then neither would I. I get MRIs every 3 months now. I am back to normal able to sleep in the tube.

10/16/2025

Come with me if you want to live.. My name is Mike Hawkins, I am a retired, disabled veteran and own Interim HealthCare Utah. I was diagnosed with brain cancer at 49 years old and am writing short stories about my experiences through that challenge. I hope you find this beneficial. With the diagnosis we went to a cancer specialist to start treatment. We had a borrowed wheel chair and meeting the doctor I could not hold up my head. He said the treatment would be 8 rounds of chemo therapy given in-patient about every 3 weeks. We would be in the hospital for a week to get the chemo then stay in the hospital until my body had cleared the chemo from my system before we could go home–usually a week each time. So 1 week in the hospital, 2 weeks at home, do this 8 times. My doctor was a very nice man but he felt to me like he had built a protective wall around himself to insulate him from the anguish of people dying. After a couple of treatments it just felt like I was a statistic to him–people with cancer die, that’s what happens and if I died it was part of the deal. Well I didn’t want to die so we moved to the Huntsman Cancer Institute under the care of Doctor Joe Mendez. Again when I met Dr Mendez Natalie held my head up, I was in rough shape so my memory is vague, but to me Dr Mendez looked like Arnold Schwartzeneger in Terminator 2. If you haven’t seen Terminator 1 or Terminator 2, here’s a quick summary: In the future technology has become self aware and realized humans are the problem so robots wage war with humans. John Connor is the leader of the human resistance. The robots send a Terminator back in time to kill Sarah Connor (John’s mom) before John is born. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Terminator. He fails so in Terminator 2 the robots send another, better robot back in time to kill a young John Connor. The humans capture and reprogram an Arnold Schwarzenegger terminator and send it back to protect John from the new robot. Sarah is in an insane asylum for talking about the future and killer robots. The Arnold robot, under orders of John goes to save her. She has only seen the Arnold robot as a killer so when he shows up to save her she freaks out. In an epic scene he reaches his hand out to her as she is back peddling away and he says “Come with me if you want to live.” My memory of the time was not great but I swear Dr. Mendez after meeting us and hearing our story reached his hand out and said “Come with me if you want to live.” Super badass–we did and we did. So I photoshopped Dr Mendez head onto that scene from the movie and had a poster made for him. Dr Mendez continued the same treatment plan but in the Huntsman Cancer Institute building–a much nicer place but he added a final step–a Bone marrow transplant to ‘seal the deal.’ Chemo overall was not as rough as I expected–I was nauseous all the time, had no appetite and was very weak but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. The hospital stays were mostly boring. I relied on Youtube videos for inspiration. I became obsessed with cooking videos despite being almost unable to toast bread or boil water.

10/15/2025

Brain Surgery, does brain juice taste like Root Beer or Orange Crush? My name is Mike Hawkins, I am a retired, disabled veteran and own Interim HealthCare Utah. I was diagnosed with brain cancer at 49 years old and am writing short stories about my experiences through that challenge. I hope you find this beneficial. My first brain surgery was a rush and pretty big shock, I had surgery within a day or two of going to the emergency department. One of my favorite memories–this was just as Covid was taking off and everybody was freaking out wearing masks, etc. My brain surgeon came to visit us before surgery and I thought it was pretty bad ass that he was not wearing a mask and was chomping an apple the whole time--like he was bigger than the rules--he had a swagger to him that gave me confidence. I was in very good spirits after surgery waiting for the results of the biopsy. I had a dark orange tube coming out of my head into a bag hanging on a pole next to the bed to drain spinal fluid so it would not build pressure in my head. Something I noticed: if I strained, I could get the fluid to drip into the bag faster, so I played with that for a while. Then I got curious looking at this bag pretty full of brain juice wondering what it tasted like. How many times do you get the chance to taste your own brain fluid was my thinking. That started a debate about if the fluid tasted more like root beer or orange crush. I asked everyone for their opinion, nurses mostly said orange crush, everyone else said mostly root beer. They wouldn’t give me a straw for just a little taste–lame. Then I fell asleep and found when I woke up that they had replaced the bag–double lame. So I never found out who was right. My bet is it would taste salty like a tear, we will never know. Anyway later we had another surgery to move the tube inside my body, so I now have a big lump on my head and a tube that runs down the inside of my body and drains into my belly. The natural drain is doing it’s job as the swelling is down, but removing the tube means more head surgery and 3 is more than enough for me. Plus the big lump peaks the interest of grand kids, so that’s cool.

10/14/2025

My brain cancer story–the diagnosis. My name is Mike Hawkins, I am a retired, disabled veteran and own Interim HealthCare Utah. I was diagnosed with brain cancer at 49 years old and am writing short stories about my experiences through that challenge. I hope you find this beneficial. I was a fit, athletic strong 49 year old man. I went snowboarding in early 2020 and was frustrated because I did not feel I had my typical balance on the slopes.I tore a ligament in my right knee at the end of the day. For the next month my right foot was dragging, I thought because of my knee injury, but then I started to bounce off walls as I walked down the hall, my speech got slurry, my right hand was not working right when typing, and I would topple to the ground when leaning over to tie my shoes. Lastly I was always exhausted–often taking naps on the floor at work. I visited my doctor who ordered many tests. An MRI showed brain lesions and I was told it was likely Multiple Sclerosis. That was a hard pill to swallow, I cried many times. After a second MRI they still felt it was MS, but Dr McKay was not convinced and thought it was serious. They said we could do another MRI or brain surgery for a biopsy. I thought what would a 3rd MRI tell us that the first 2 did not. We tried to schedule surgery but Covid was newly emerging and scheduling anything was hard. My friend Mike Bridges and I were going on a river float fly fishing trip. The day of the trip I was in bad shape–very tired, very very dizzy–I shouldn’t have gone but I felt if I was going to die, it might as well happen in my favorite place with my friend. I got a prescription medication for vertigo which did nothing to help. We floated the river on our personal inflatable boats–I should have drown. At the bottom I could not get out of my boat by myself. We got home Sunday and Monday morning I woke up severely nauseous, unable to get out of bed. So Natalie called 911 and we went to the emergency department in an ambulance. They did brain surgery the next day and told me I had stage 4 Large B Cell Lymphoma in my cerebellum–I took the news very well, my spirits were high and I was mentally prepared for the rough road. My oldest daughter Lily was scheduled to leave for college at the Air Force Academy. I had to beg doctors to let me leave the hospital after surgery to see her off. Hugging her goodbye felt like it might be the last time we ever hugged.

This Emergency Nurses Week, we celebrate the calm in the chaos. Thank you to the nurses who bring skill, speed, and comp...
10/08/2025

This Emergency Nurses Week, we celebrate the calm in the chaos. Thank you to the nurses who bring skill, speed, and compassion when every second counts.

During Physician Assistants Week, we recognize the PAs who work side by side with physicians, nurses, and care teams to ...
10/06/2025

During Physician Assistants Week, we recognize the PAs who work side by side with physicians, nurses, and care teams to improve lives every day.

Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to celebrate strength, culture, and community. It is also a time to spotlight importan...
10/03/2025

Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to celebrate strength, culture, and community. It is also a time to spotlight important health disparities, such as the fact that Hispanic Americans are 1.5 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s.

Join us in advocating for early detection, access to care, and support for all families facing dementia. https://alz.org/interimhealthcarewalk

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2112 N Hill Field Rd Ste 2B
Layton, UT
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