Nurse uses skills to focus on wellness in new business

DOTHAN, Ala. (AP) — Right after expending years as a registered nurse, Marteen Lewis made the decision to alter how she assisted people.

So she still left the hospital location and, extra than a calendar year in the past, opened Earthly Wellness Bar, a well being and wellness spa supplying handmade goods as perfectly as products and services developed to help with rest, lymphatic drainage, and female treatment.

Building the business enterprise is a dream come accurate for Lewis.

“The simple fact that you can merely turn a thought of a dream into a reality, remain centered and do the get the job done,” Lewis explained. “I definitely want to permit folks know it is possible. Entrepreneurship has been one of the most difficult responsibilities I have at any time experimented with to finish, but it has been one particular of the most gratifying outside the house of motherhood.”


The Marianna, Florida, native attended nursing school at Wallace Community School in Dothan and worked at Bouquets Hospital immediately after graduating. More than the course of her nursing job, Lewis worked as a cardiac care nurse, as a dialysis nurse, and sooner or later as a journey nurse.

Throughout the initial calendar year of the pandemic, Lewis served treatment for COVID-19 individuals through her travel assignments. The emotional and bodily strain of the pandemic on health and fitness treatment personnel was much worse than something portrayed in the media, Lewis explained.

“The news shared as much as they could but to be in it was a various story,” she reported. “If you give me a scale, it was likely 10 instances even worse than the scale that you can give me. It was undesirable. The hours and the exposure, the absence of consuming, the lack of sleeping mainly because you go residence pondering about all you had been exposed to — Will I give it to my household?”

Throughout a journey assignment, Lewis was caring for a dialysis affected person in a clinic COVID unit when five users of the similar family members all hospitalized with COVID-19 coded in the course of the very same change. That was it for Lewis. She started to rethink how she could use her expertise as a nurse to enable folks fortify their immune programs and dwell more healthy life.

“I experienced to make a transform, and I just started exploring the immune method and detoxification and healthier living,” Lewis claimed.

It was a hard changeover simply because she beloved becoming a nurse, and Lewis nevertheless will work one particular day a 7 days as a dialysis nurse. Her relatives, together with her two sons ages 20 and 11, have been supportive through her days as a travel nurse and her transition into business enterprise proprietor.

Earthly Wellness Bar is situated on the Ross Clark Circle in Dothan. Providers, items, and details on reserving can be located at earthlywellnessbar.com. Or, connect with 850-557-8530 for additional facts.

Providers include aromatherapy, detoxification, vaginal steaming, dry brushing, human body contouring, and handbook lymphatic remedies with wooden tools designed to assist with publish-operative treatment next beauty treatments. Handmade soap, yoni oil, bath balms, foot soaks, and exfoliating scrubs are offered for buy. Although the soaps are made by a fellow nurse in Atlanta, Lewis makes other solutions herself.

Items at Earthly Wellness Bar are manufactured from all-organic elements, Lewis mentioned.

Though there is an emphasis on female treatment, Earthly Wellness also features services for adult males — these types of as a beard facial — as well as a package created for partners. Lewis strategies to also deliver in a therapeutic massage therapist to provide therapeutic massage companies.

Charges vary relying on the company but can range from $65 to $100. Expert services can also be bundled in a deal. Cleaning soap, oil, tub balm, and exfoliating products can be packaged in a $60 bundle or acquired individually for $8, $10, $12, or $35 depending on the products.

Lewis does a session with clients prior to their first go to and mentioned she tries to educate her clientele about how to stay a additional wholesome daily life and the advantages they will expertise as a consequence.

Providers presented at Earthly Wellness Bar were affected by Lewis’ own wellness journey when she was nonetheless performing as a nurse. She began by discovering far more about cleanse eating, fasting, detoxifying, and the significance of superior gut health. Lewis mentioned as she commenced taking in far better, she saw the connection involving having healthful and minimizing her stress ranges.

“That assisted me together the way when I was out journey nursing,” Lewis reported. “I was ready to make better foodstuff possibilities, I wasn’t as exhausted. I experienced much more electrical power for the reason that the gut is the place the serotonin is stimulated, which presents you delighted ideas.”