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One year after her daughter's painful ordeal, JoEllen Koerner (center) visits with Kristi Welch and her sons, JJ (left) and Ethan. The experience inspired Koerner to write a memoir titled "Mother, Heal My Self."

JoEllen Koerner, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, felt her heart beating wildly as she watched her daughter pace in circles like a caged animal. Kristi Welch, 30, had endured months of knife-stabbing pain from kidney stones and stents, and was accelerating toward her breaking point.

Then, Welch asked her mother a dreaded question: "If this does not change in two days, will you help me die?"

For the veteran nurse, the question revealed just how thoroughly Western medicine had failed her daughter. At that moment, Welch didn't need another procedure, pill or visit to the emergency room. In desperation, the two women turned to the aid of an American Indian healer named Wanigi Waci, a Lakota Sioux who offered Welch new options for medical aid-options that ultimately helped her walk away from the brink of death.

The experience propelled Koerner toward a new mission in her nursing career: working to introduce the American Indian model of medicine to more patients, doctors and nurses. She is one of several nurses nationwide pioneering programs that incorporate indigenous holistic health into the Western medical system. These nurses suggest that American Indian practices derive healing power from spiritual and familial connections that Western medicine often fails to tap into.

But even with Koerner's strong convictions about the power of indigenous healing, the path to integrating these considerably different models has proved to be far from simple.

"There is an arrogance in Western society that we have the only way to heal," said Koerner, who lives in South Dakota. "I think Western medicine diagnoses a disease and treats the symptoms, but not the root causes. The root causes can be the emotional component of something. I really believe now that sickness is a manifestation of something deeper."

System failure

Welch's medical problems started escalating severely during her second pregnancy. She developed gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, endocrine system complications and then kidney stones. The doctors she visited continually misdiagnosed the problems and were even rude at times. One kidney specialist said she could not possibly have kidney stones at age 30 with no family history of the disease.

She finally had emergency kidney surgery and the surgeon found that she had five stones. Doctors inserted stents to help the stones pass, but the stents caused wrenching pain.

Koerner's voice halted as she described the terror she felt when her daughter's pain was so severe she went into shock-her body was drenched in sweat, her face was white and lips blue as her hands flailed in the air.

Even with the stents, the stones were not passing. Helpless and frantic, Koerner took her daughter to an American Indian healing ceremony, where people from the tribe prayed for her. There, something supernatural happened for Welch.

"I'm a very analytical person, but now I'm a strong believer in our ability to interact with beings we really can't see," Welch said. "When they called my name during the prayer ceremony, I definitely felt actual thumping on my back even though no one was touching me. It felt like a gruff tapping."

The American Indian medicine man also told her that the largest stone probably would not come out on its own. He turned out to be right. She would later need surgery to remove it.

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