My Story

In August of 2022, my life would changed forever.

After the removal of a severely infected tooth, I experienced a catastrophic collapse in my health that left me fighting for my life, my family, and my future.

Before August 21, 2022, I had already been struggling with serious health issues for years.

I was working as a dietary aide at St. Joseph Hospital in Tacoma, Washington, and was barely getting by. Every day I dealt with severe joint pain, pain in my legs and feet, chronic hives on my hands and feet that would keep me awake scratching until I cried, vertigo, dizzy spells, and blind spots in my vision that would come and go without warning.

I had also suffered from kidney stones and gallstones for years. I was scheduled to have my gallbladder removed, but something inside me told me not to go through with the surgery, so I never did.

I also struggled with depression, irregular periods, severe digestive issues, and constant bloating. My stomach would go from flat to looking nine months pregnant after almost every meal.

Despite all of this, I continued working, raising my family, traveling, and doing everything I could to maintain a normal life.

Eventually, I was diagnosed with IBS. I was told I was dealing with fibromyalgia and hypoglycemic. I was prescribed medications for depression.

But none of those diagnoses explained everything else I was experiencing.

After several years in our home in Tacoma, our family endured significant stress during COVID and decided to sell our home and moved to Graham.

For the first time in a long time, life felt like it was getting better.

We were excited about this new chapter.

Not long after moving, we found out we were pregnant.

This was exciting because I had struggled to get pregnant for years.

During pregnancy, I learned through a home test that I had celiac disease. I brought the results to my doctor, who had been unable to figure out what was wrong with me. For the first time, it felt like one piece of the puzzle had finally fallen into place.

Around that same time, COVID finally reached my family. My husband and I were both down for the count!

Then a few months later, I delivered my beautiful baby girl via C-section. During the pregnancy, I experienced complications that I now believe may have been connected to my declining health.

Despite everything, I was incredibly grateful and excited to experience motherhood again, at this new stage in my life.

But after my daughter was born, I noticed something was off about my health.

When I attempted to return to work part-time, I quickly realized I couldn't even do that. I could barely make it through a few short shifts each week.

I was exhausted.

Embarrassed.

And wondering WTF was going on.

Around that same time, I learned that I had a severe infection in a previous root canal tooth.

I reached out to a dentist and got a appointment scheduled immediately. Since It was a root-canal tooth I didn’t feel the infection brewing deep under my tooth. I repeatedly voiced my concerns to my dentist. As months passed, every other tooth seemed to receive attention before tooth #30 the one that was clearly infected at this point. There was a lot of hesitation around working on it. At the time I just thought they were more focused on making money and found issues with other teeth. My concern was tooth #30. But the situation continued to worsen.

A week before my extraction appointment, most of the tooth had broken apart. I called to let them know because they were talking about trying to “save” the tooth. but at this point there was no way this tooth was being saved!

I developed a large abscess beneath my gums and notified my dentist. Then literally the day before there was almost nothing left of my tooth.

Then the day came my tooth was finally removed, I felt relieved. I thought I wouldn have to worry about the infection going to my brain! Or going sepsis.

I thought the problem was over.

Little did I know, I had no idea what was about to happen.

Immediately after the extraction, I began experiencing strange symptoms. Things felt off at my husband and I went to a bbq and I only had one drink and felt drunk and slurring my speech. Nothing I was trying to say was making sense, I remember thinking this is weird I can definitely handle more than one drink. I have had these before.

Then, the next day on the morning of August 21, 2022, It started.

That morning I woke up feeling weak and off.

Then by mid-afternoon while dusting shelves in my quite Livingroom, I experienced what I can only describe as the beginning of my collapse. A sudden loss of reality, my vision started to blur and I felt extremely weak.

I thought maybe I was having a stroke.

I grabbed the back of my neck, and woke up my husband who was napping on the couch.

"Wake up. Something is wrong!"

My speech became slurred.

My arms began tingling.

My vision blurred.

My heart felt like it was pounding out of my chest.

The pain in the back of my neck became intense.

I rushed over to a chair.

I felt myself slipping away.

I began losing consciousness.

I didn't know whether I was having a stroke, a heart attack, or something else entirely.

What I did know was that I was losing my ability to function in real time.

I could no longer sit upright.

I could no longer stand.

My thoughts were disappearing.

My memories were disappearing.

I was losing sense of time and reality.

My husband rushed me into the car.

On the way to the hospital, we stopped at a nearby fire station. I told my husband I wasn’t going to make it. When I got there they sat me inside calmly asking questions while they called an ambulance. At this point I was slumped in a chair unable to communicate much.

They immediately loaded me into an ambulance and transported me to Good Sam emergency room.

Once I arrived, there didn't seem to be any urgency.

I was placed in a chair in a hallway.

After testing, a doctor returned and told me everything looked normal.

and suggested it was probably stress.

I couldn’t move or talk. Just slouched over like a limp noodle unable to speak up for myself.

Then I was discharged and sent home.

I was mortified.

A nurse saw the desperation in our eyes and quietly approached us.

She told us she wasn't supposed to do this, but she could tell something wasn't right.

She suggested trying a few vitamins in case a deficiency was contributing to my symptoms. She had also suggested a heavy metal test.

That was the only suggested help I ever received. EVER!!!!!

Over the following days, the “episodes” what we would later began to call them, continued. Over and over again.

Then it became constant.

Every time I stood up, my symptoms worsened.

I could not tolerate light.

I could not tolerate sound.

I could not tolerate movement.

I could not tolerate stimulation of any kind.

I could not think.

I could not process conversations.

I could not feel hunger.

I could not feel emotions.

I could no longer feel my skin.

I lost all sense of time.

Minutes felt like years.

Days disappeared completely.

My brain was scattered beyond repair. Something I didn’t know that was even humanly possible. I could no longer think!!!! I had this constant feeling of doom. I needed help. But I couldn’t move or talk. I was in critical condition yet no ER protocol or test could see what was going on.

The hardest part was watching myself disappear while the world continued on without me.

Every piece of me vanished.

my energy.

my ability to think.

my memory.

my emotions.

my connection to the world around me.

my connection to the people I loved most.

I remember looking at my husband and knowing who he was, yet feeling completely disconnected from him and the world around me.

Nothing seemed to matter. Nothing at all.

My brain felt like scrambled eggs. Like someone took my brain and thoughts and shook them into a million tiny pieces and then you had to try and form a though or sentence quickly in real time. Reading that you start to realize how amazing the brain is and how serious my condition was.

I couldn't hold onto a thought long enough to think it.

My motherly instincts were completely gone.

I lay there and could no longer feel the pull when my daughter would cry out for me. She was only 9 months old and depended on breastfeeding. I would lay there a vegetable in bed, and my husband would put her on me while I lay there and felt nothing. Although I felt nothing, I had this urge to try and save my life because I knew no one else would. If I let, go I would leave behind a beautiful family 3 children who would need me for the rest of their lives. Every moment was pure torcher.

I was so weak I couldn’t even move the muscle in my face

I cannot adequately describe the terror of being fully aware that something catastrophic has happened to your brain while simultaneously losing the ability to explain it.

I was watching my ability to function disappear in real time, and nobody could tell me what was happening.

I became completely bedridden.

I was breathing, but no one was home.

I spent my days, weeks, months then years lying in bed staring at the ceiling while the rest of the world continued moving around me.

I desperately needed help, but I couldn't even move or talk.

Conversations were impossible.

Even listening to someone speak felt extremely overwhelming. I couldn’t understand or process what they were saying.

Light hurt and made me forget where I was.

Noise hurt.

Movement hurt.

Thinking hurt.

My husband would come upstairs to check on me, and I would lie there unable to move or communicate what was happening.

I wanted to scream for help.

I wanted someone to understand and help me.

I wanted someone to take me to the hospital and explain what was going on. That I could no longer feel hunger. At one point I tried telling my husband make sure I eat.

But I couldn't.

I was conscious enough to know something catastrophic had happened, yet unable to explain it. I just knew something was deathly wrong and I did not think I was going to survive.

I was hanging on by a thread every second of every day.

Alone in a darkness I cannot adequately describe.

I felt erased.

The woman I had been my entire life was gone.

It was a level of suffering I didn't know was humanly possible.

one of the most frightening parts was that every test continued coming back normal.

I was living through something that was destroying my brain and body, yet no one had a explanation for what was happening.

What I experienced was a sudden, system-wide neurological collapse that affected every system in my brain and body.

I experienced profound cognitive decline, memory loss, depersonalization, derealization, dissociation, severe life altering fatigue, nervous system dysfunction, seizure-like episodes every time I stood up, constant severe sensory overload, severe neck pain, severe neck instability, severe digestive dysfunction, food sensitivities, severe brain inflammation.

There are no words to describe how serious and life threatening my condition was.

How catastrophic damage was ravaging through my brain and body. I was left with no answers and no help from every single doctor and specialist. Dead end after dead end after dead end.

Despite countless appointments, emergency room visits, specialists, and all kinds of tests I was left without answers.

No explanation.

No treatment.

No roadmap.

No help.

I felt dismissed.

Abandoned.

And completely alone.

At one point, I tried to pray.

But my brain couldn't even form the words.

Thinking was impossible.

For what felt like days, I tried so hard to say the same prayer.

Over and over.

“god”

“you”

“give”

“god”

“if”

“god”

“I will”

“god”

I tried so hard to think the words to pray this prayer. eventually all I could get across my brain was

"God, if You just give me an inch, I will take it and run."

Eventually, the words came. During this time that was all I ever was able to think.

And shortly after, I noticed a slight shift.

Not a miracle.

Not a dramatic recovery.

Just the slightest shift.

A little more ability to fight.

At the time, it didn't feel significant because I was still living through hell on earth.

But looking back, I believe that was the moment I stopped fighting for my life and put it in gods hands.

I had no idea how long the road ahead would be.

I had no idea it would take years. and even then I wouldn’t fully recover.

I had no idea how much I would lose.

But I had been given an inch.

And I was determined to take it and run.

Eventually, I realized that if I wanted answers, I would have to become my own advocate.

I spent the first few months fighting for my life.

I spent the next several years searching for answers.

As I searched, one thing became increasingly clear.

There was a huge gap in the system. With western medicine and dentistry. Seeing specialist after specialist and everything being so separate in the body. As if nothing is connected. And it was very clear everything was connected for me. Every trigger every setback every step moving forward every decision I made would affect me.

What happened to me was never just one thing.

Looking back, I can see now what functional doctors call the perfect storm.

I stopped searching for one answer and started looking at the entire picture.

So I tried to research

I couldn't even read a sentence, but I kept trying.

Over and over.

My brain was so scattered I couldn’t remember what I had just read. Reading was extremely difficult, but I thought If I just kept trying, I would heal or get better. Well, that was far from the truth. It was frustrating. I was constantly irritable. Overwhelmed by everything.

But I wanted to heal I needed to heal. It’s all I wanted to do. It’s all I could think about because my life depended on it.

My new reality was extremely heartbreaking. I never got the help I needed so I was left trying to pick up the pieces while still raising a family.

Every second of every day I tried to find answers.

Nothing felt good.

Nothing seemed to get better.

I felt constantly defeated, sick and out of my mind but I had a drive inside me to live for my children.

Then I had a eye opening experience I never saw coming.

After that experience. I kept trying to study everything I could about brain detox, gut health and nutrition.

I had come across Dr. Pompa’s program and that for me was life changing, things really started to shift after I finished the 5-6th month of brain detox. Then Evan Brands program I also enrolled into his better belly course and sat in on live calls watching live case studies with Evan and doctors. I eventually got my nutrition coach certification. Then I won a scholarship through RSN! After that I checked out Detox dudes. The following year I finally went to Amen Clinics.

What began as a fight for my own life eventually became a calling.

Because I realized I wasn't alone.

There are families everywhere desperately searching for answers.

They're overwhelmed.

They're exhausted.

They’re misdiagnosed.

They're dismissed.

They're trying to figure out which practitioner to trust, which tests may be worth considering, and what their next step should be.

I know what that feels like because I lived it.

There are parts of my story that remain unanswered and unhealed.

There are pieces of my health that I continue to work on every day.

But I am no longer the woman lying in bed staring at the ceiling, unable to speak and participate in her own life.

I fought my way back.

Not overnight.

Not through a miracle treatment.

But through relentless persistence, faith, functional medicine, research, and a refusal to give up.

I never got my old life back.

The woman who existed before August of 2022 is gone.

In many ways, I still grieve her.

But through the devastation, I found purpose.

What happened to me wasn't just a health crisis.

It changed the trajectory of my entire life.

Everything I do today exists because of what happened in August of 2022.

Cottage Wellness.

My education.

My advocacy work.

My passion for helping families.

My mission to help people connect the dots between the body, the brain, and the environment we live in.

None of it would exist without the darkest season of my life.

Today, Cottage Wellness exists because I know what it feels like to be terrified, overwhelmed, dismissed, and desperately searching for hope.

Because no family should have to walk this path alone.

Hope.

Answers.

Healing.

Those were the things I was searching for.

And now they are the things I hope to help others find.