Testimonials

Testimonials

“ Such a friendly, knowledgeable, caring, and compassionate staff! The new building is a top-notch facility. ”

“I was so sick that I thought that I might not make it home, that I wasn’t going to survive…The Tepeyac team gave my life back to me.”

“The Tepeyac staff helped me get signed up for Medicaid. Now I can see my Tepeyac doctor without worrying about the cost.”

Stories of Our Work

Meet Maria, a 54-year-old monolingual Spanish-speaking woman, who arrived at Tepeyac with a health crisis. She had lost a tremendous amount of weight and had become frail. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, was so ill that she couldn’t work, and was incredibly frightened. Maria’s physical health problems contributed to mental health challenges as well.

“I was so sick that I thought that I might not make it home, that I wasn’t going to survive…The Tepeyac team gave my life back to me.”

-Maria

Three days after Maria visited Tepeyac and was started on the right medication, she felt significantly better. And as a standard component of care at Tepeyac, Maria’s physical health provider conducted a behavioral health screening; after receiving behavioral services at Tepeyac, Maria no longer experiences elevated anxiety or depression.

Our dental patient came to us on her first visit about a month ago, very ashamed and emotional about the condition of her teeth. She was crying and didn’t even want us to look at her teeth—she only kept asking to just have them all removed, and dentures placed. After hearing her story and letting her know she was in a safe space, she finally allowed us to take x-rays and to take a look. She had not been to the dentist in over 20 years and actually had very pretty teeth underneath the years of heavy tartar buildup.   

The patient recently completed her 3rd visit and seems so much happier and proud of her smile. She no longer wants to extract all of her teeth and get dentures and she is beginning to smile more. It really is inspiring to see her confidence restored with just some basic dental care. She told Lucy the other day that, “ She is so grateful that God brought her to us.”   

She does, however, need work that we cannot complete. She needs a partial and some crowns. We tried to refer her to another practice, but she refuses and wants to wait until we are able to treat her. We cautioned her that it could be over two years before we are able to complete the treatment that she needs and in the meantime her condition may worsen---she still wants to wait for us.   

This “wait for us” message is one that is super common among the patients at Tepeyac. They feel at home with the care they receive and do not want to go anywhere else, even if it means waiting years. This is definitely a testament to the foundation the medical/BH and entire team at Tepeyac has done to really build relationships with our families.

We had a new patient who moved to Denver from Boston. She was grieving because she felt uprooted from her community and family that she had established in Boston. She also was nervous moving here because she needed ongoing care for breast cancer. We were able to connect her to a local oncologist, so she did not have any lapse of care for her breast cancer. We continued her preventative care services and management of her chronic conditions. She also met with our Behavioral Health team for emotional support during the transitional period. She expressed that she gradually felt more comfortable here in Colorado and Tepeyac's support was a big part of her success. We saw her recently a year later and she was excited to be moving back to her community in Boston. At her last visit, she said that while she was nearly completely happy to be returning home, a small part of her regretted that she won't get to continue working with Tepeyac.

Recently we had a new patient that came here from Singapore three weeks ago. She is transgender, living with HIV, and supports herself through commercial sex work. She was extremely worried about running out of her HIV Medication and having health insurance. She is living in a hotel, is looking for Behavioral Health services, and wants gender affirming therapy. She was so relieved when I was able to tell her that Ryan White would cover her health care costs, that we have integrated Behavioral Health care, that I can prescribe her hormone therapy, and that she can get her HIV medications covered today. She also wanted support around her sex work. We talked about how we can do frequent STD testing, focused on her safety. In addition, she mentioned she has a history of substance use disorder and was excited to know we have addiction specialists as well. Being able to support the individual as a whole by providing integrative care, has allowed us to open barriers and meet the direct needs of our patients.

One of our patients is 85 years old and pretty set in his ways. He came to us after having a less than ideal experience at another clinic. He felt that they didn’t address his needs and basically just brushed him off (he thinks because he spoke Spanish). He definitely had his guard up at first and was at times, pretty difficult to manage. We didn’t give up and kept working with him to break down his walls. He ended up getting a lot of dental work done with us including extractions and fillings, and each time he grew warmer and warmer. 

We got to the end of the restorative treatment that we could perform at the clinic and needed to refer him to another clinic to have partials made (which we didn’t do at the time). He refused to go anywhere else and wanted to wait for us to start making them. He patiently came back for each cleaning appointment, asking each time if we “were able to make his partial yet?” 

A few weeks ago, we decided to introduce a new procedure—partials and the first person we called was this patient! He came in right away! We took his dental impressions, and he was so thrilled that we were going to be able to make his partials for him. He is now a patient we really look forward to seeing. He is kind, generous and truly a pleasure.  

 Vaccinations Stories

Vaccinations provide an additional touch point for patients to access other Tepeyac services. We had a wide range of experiences at our drive-through vaccine clinic. Here are a few snap shots from the perspectives of our nurses and volunteers: 

One of our nurses had been trying to set up a medication review appointment but the patient she was trying to schedule hadn’t answered his phone. A few days later this same patient came through our vaccine drive-through, and our nurse was able to set up an appointment for him on the following day with our PA. This was crucial because he was experiencing a resting systolic blood pressure of almost 200, which is dangerous. 

Another patient complained of shoulder pain at a vaccine drive-through. The staff listened and responded by helping to schedule an appointment that day with our PA who was able to get his blood pressure stabilized.   

Another patient told one of our vaccine volunteers that he was under a lot of stress and was struggling with suicidal ideations. He explained that his family situation had prevented him from accessing Tepeyac Behavioral Health services. The volunteer asked the patient to wait and went into the clinic and found the Behavioral Health provider who came out immediately and stayed past his shift to care for the patient. 

On a warm winter day one of our nurses gave a vaccine to elderly patient outside the clinic. During 15-minute waiting period after getting the vaccine, the patient told the nurse that her husband had been on a ventilator for three weeks and ultimately passed away from COVID two weeks ago. She expressed gratitude for the vaccine and our nurse thanked her for sharing her story. The nurse made this woman feel comfortable and welcome, which was crucial in this time of grieving. 

A young boy came through the drive-through vaccine with a strong fear of needles. Initially, he would not let the nurse even try to swab his arm with the alcohol swab because he was so anxious. While the child clung to his father’s hand, our nurse talked with him, comforted him, and he eventually let her give him the shot. When she was finished, the boy smiled sheepishly and said that he didn’t even feel it. 

An elderly patient came through our drive-through vaccine clinic and shared her beautiful life story (including 37 great grandkids) and prayed with the volunteer at end of the process. She prayed for her continued health and for that of the health care providers. 

A patient came through with her husband who received his first dose and said that she did not believe in the vaccine for herself. The same patient returned a week later to get her shot because our nurse did such a great job of explaining about the vaccine while administering it to her husband, that she was convinced it was safe! This patient was also given the time and space to make her own decision and come to her own conclusion.  

One patient took three buses from Aurora / Parker, a two hour travel time, to receive BOTH doses of the vaccine at Tepeyac.  

The drive through vaccine clinic was a success for so many reasons! Our dedicated staff knew that they were making a difference in the lives of our patients and the community. As a result, some of our staff volunteered to stay late to meet patients and even came in to help out on days when they weren’t scheduled.  

These stories are among many that represent the need for Tepeyac’s integrated model of care and the case for expansion. To learn more about our site expansion, click here.