I have served in a variety of roles within the healthcare system: bedside nursing, advanced practice medicine, pharmaceutical research, and education to name a few. My most life-changing role, however, took place in 2014, when I experienced a sudden illness.

I found myself in an unfamiliar role as a patient, now a consumer of the system in which I had spent decades working. I was sent home after a long hospital stay, still unwell, my condition deemed a medical mystery. I felt powerless. Despite evaluations by several specialists who told me they did not know what was wrong with me, I had no definitive plan for restoring my health and was offered only conventional medications for symptom relief, many of which had side effects of their own. I felt controlled by medical insurance, which dictated what tests and treatments I could and could not have. Despite this coverage, for which I was paying a hefty monthly premium, I still paid an additional $10,000 in out-of-pocket medical costs that year alone!

Having always operated from a more holistic mindset, I inherently knew there was a root cause to my condition. From this intuitive lead, I embraced an integrative approach with a focus on natural remedies.

In time, I had a viable explanation for my body’s dis-ease process. I had contracted Lyme Disease and other co-infections from an insect bite while hiking, which was not revealed by conventional testing. By embracing the tools needed to heal mind, body and spirit and strengthen well-being, I achieved comprehensive wellness that I did not find in standard medical approaches alone. While these therapies cost me money out-of-pocket, it was far less than what I previously paid out, and the difference was I got better! In fact, I became even healthier than I was prior to the illness.

As a testament to the empowerment of investing in my health with an integrative approach to wellness, just three years after beginning my healing journey I successfully hiked 19,341 feet to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro!

My journey led me to seek out advanced education in the specialty of integrative medicine. I learned how to help people embrace the ‘healing crisis’ that our bodies experience; it is there that the power to heal oneself is returned back to us. There is a definitive place for conventional treatment protocols, but alone it can often be unbalanced. As my late mentor, the respected Jim Sensenig, ND used to say, “The minute you reduce medicine to protocols, you remove the patient from the equation.” Personalized integrative care removes protocols by focusing on the individual, combining the best of natural and conventional medicine, restoring balance and allowing healing to take place.

Do you have a constellation of undiagnosable symptoms? Are you being treated for a diagnosis with a long list of medications, but still not feeling well? Are you paying exorbitant out-of-pocket costs for “Bandaid” approaches, but feel as though more can be done? Do you want to leverage your wellness in a more preventive mindset? 

I invite you to take the first step in your healing journey to wellness. Let me help you take your power back!