The company of others has always energized 62-year-old eastside resident Viki Fletcher. While working full-time in insurance for nearly two decades, she embraced the chance to interact with those in other fields in her part-time hospitality and retail positions. After earning a human resources degree late in her career, she worked as a college administrative assistant, again welcoming the chance to meet “a lot of different people. I love meeting people . . . . ” she says.

This outgoing spirit is part of why Fletcher has kept coming back to Eskenazi Health. She’s appreciated the connections she’s developed with her doctors. “I like that when I come into the room, they know me,” she says.

This personal approach is something she hasn’t always experienced in other health systems. “I mean, you go to some of these places, and they’ve got your chart in front of you, and that’s it. They don’t know what you’ve been through or even kept up with you, but I’ve found that at Eskenazi [Health], they try to keep up with you . . . . ”

Fletcher has dealt with her share of health issues over the years, but a solid support network has sustained her. After a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosis, her employer helped her rearrange work hours to make chemotherapy and radiation appointments, and the staff at Eskenazi Health assisted her in scheduling around those new hours. She was grateful to “my friends at work, my coworkers, my family especially. And the doctors, they really worked with me. They helped me understand what was going on and what could come up and what couldn’t.”

Now cancer-free, Fletcher still deals with other health issues, including diminished mobility on her left side resulting from a stroke. Those issues have slowed her world traveling — she was previously a frequenter of island getaways on girls’ trips with her mom and sister — but they haven’t dampened her enthusiasm for group activities. She discovered in her years growing up in Terre Haute that regardless of her situation or location, “with the different people that I was around and different friends, you make your fun wherever you go.”

One unexpected source of enjoyment has been Eskenazi Health’s lifestyle medicine groups, run by a team of outpatient dieticians and lifestyle wellness coaches at Eskenazi Health primary care centers. Fletcher has joined many cooking, exercise and wellness groups over the years, most recently groups led by lifestyle wellness coaches Megan Bernard and Liz Otten. Fletcher has also joined one of the series on navigating an illness, the Eskenazi Health Center Diabetes Education Program.

“I love them,” Fletcher says of the groups, adding that she can “get all the information, and if I have a question, I can talk to [the coaches and dietitians], and I get to see other people in the class . . . . ” Fletcher likes the chance to bounce “different ideas off of each other, and it’s somebody you can talk to, somebody different.”

She has been especially thankful for fellow patients in the diabetes program who were willing to share their own personal struggles and challenges. Motivated and learning from their stories and experiences, Fletcher has been able use lifestyle tools to the fullest. “So far, it’s going okay,” she says. In fact, her current diabetes management exceeds treatment goals. She quips that she’s in “maintenance on everything.”

Fletcher gets her vision, dental and breast care at Eskenazi Health. She has been to various primary care centers over the years, including Eskenazi Health Center Westside, Eskenazi Health Center Primary Care, Eskenazi Health Center Grassy Creek and Eskenazi Health Center Grande. She describes the staff members she’s encountered as “very inviting and very helpful,” adding, “You don’t feel like you’re stuck out there by yourself.”

Reflecting on Eskenazi Health medical teams, she says, “. . .I’ve really only had good times with them, even though it was illness at the time. . . . ”

One fixture in her last five years of treatment has been Kirk Holston, D.P.M., the medical director of podiatry at Eskenazi Health, who has helped Fletcher with foot damage caused by her stroke. “I love going to him,” says Fletcher. “He’s been very gentle with my feet, and he keeps me apprised if there’s something I can’t see. . . . ”

“He’s also nice to talk with,” Fletcher adds.