At the top of her game, a junior in high school with promising prospects for a softball scholarship, Jordan Ray abruptly discovered that she had a debilitating medical condition. This began her journey through the world of chronic illness and led to the development of Limitless Medical Logs to help others combat the challenges she faced along the way.
April 13, 2015 was a normal game day. Ray was playing third base. She was about to run for a routine play. “Little did I know that it was the last day I would ever step on the field wearing my uniform,” she recalled. “As I moved toward the ball, suddenly everything went dark. I fell down and lost consciousness. In the five seconds or so it took my coaches to surround me, I came to. Being an athlete, I told everyone I was fine.”
But Ray realized very quickly that everything was not fine, as she looked at faces she no longer recognized. She felt extreme, intense pain in her head, neck and back.
A visit to the doctor yielded an initial diagnosis of severe whiplash. Fifty daily migraines later and a variety of doctors and tests, she became used to being drilled with questions she couldn’t remember the answers to: types of pain, intensity, longevity and much more. All they seemed to know was this was not merely whiplash.
Ray’s mother had fought cancer and experienced similar problems with the communication of important information during doctor visits. They started using notebooks to write down questions, answers from the doctors, results of lab tests, medications prescribed, side effects and more. Slowly, over three years, Ray developed a format for a log that would compile, all in one place at a patient’s fingertips, all the information collected on their personal health journey.
“Limitless Medical Logs grew from this,” Ray explained. “They allow a patient to take full control of their own health by collecting for themselves and supplying their doctors with all the information needed to treat their condition.”
Ray’s own medical log helped in the ultimate diagnosis of her own condition. The pain she experiences is an intense pressure in the back of her head caused by a rare congenital Chiari malformation in the base of her skull and cerebellum that seriously impacts the movement of spinal fluid. “What was a normal Tuesday for my friends was a day I went in for a 10-hour brain surgery to help the condition,” Ray said.
Just as her logs have an encouraging quote on every page, Ray’s words and her actions are an inspiration to others. Her continuing struggles fighting this chronic disease and her efforts developing her helpful product make Ray a popular speaker at events.
Ray explained that her condition has often meant she was operating at a mere percentage of the efficiency she could once muster. “Other people would be further along in building the business of putting Limitless Medical Logs in the hands of everyone fighting a medical issue, aiming for good health or striving for physical fitness, so the logs can be helping people,” she said.
Limitless Medical Logs were developed due to her experiences, and Ray’s family and friends have been using them for the past three years. The format is a handy spiral-bound journal that lays flat and won’t break at the spine from being folded back to the current page. A patient writes in the dates so a single log lasts 365 days and can start any month of the year. It costs about $20.
The copyright-protected material and format fit easily into a purse, backpack, brief case or oversize jacket pocket, and the log weighs in at less than a pound.
With sections to prompt the patient to write in everything from basic information to medical contacts and history, past and future tests and surgeries, billing and insurance information, prescription medications, treatments and side effects, a pharmacy contact, a sleep tracker, and symptom and pain diagrams. There is even a place to prepare for a doctor’s appointment by writing down questions and a space to note the physician’s answers.
Perhaps best of all, a new app version of Limitless Medical Logs will be launching in the coming weeks. “A companion to the logbook, it can pull up a daily or weekly summary of what you have in the app to show your doctor,” Ray said.
A college student studying business and entrepreneurship, Ray continues making miraculous strides in her recovery from her daunting condition.
“You can feel so isolated, so alone when you first receive a diagnosis like this,” she said. “There is so much you want to know and so much the doctors ask you. Questions they need the answers to in order to help you. That’s why I developed Limitless Medical Logs, to put the patient in the driver’s seat and provide them with unlimited potential in their recovery.”
For more information about Limitless Medical Logs, or to place an order, visit www.limitlessmedicallogs.com.