The Details

Looking back, it’s truly no wonder why my health started to decline. At the start of my “health obstacles”, I had somehow gotten caught within the standard healthcare mentality of treating the symptom versus addressing the root cause.

Like most people I thought I was a perfectly healthy person, leading a healthy lifestyle. I had moved to NY in 2006 to pursue my Architecture degree. Just prior to that, I’d been experiencing difficulty breathing, and after being misdiagnosed with asthma several times, I had come to find that I’d developed scar tissue below my trachea, creating airway blockage. It felt as if each breath in and out was going through a small straw.

By the end of the year, I underwent a surgical procedure to address the scar tissue. I thought that was that, and I could continue with my life. But a year later, the scar tissue had grown back significantly and I underwent another surgery…and another, and another. And in 9 years I had undergone a total of 8 surgeries. Somehow, planning my life around surgery had become my norm.

Throughout the process, I was prescribed numerous drugs like PPI’s and so many more. I spent a lot of time seeing different specialists, trying to resolve this stubborn health obstacle, but I was getting nowhere, and FAST. I kept hearing medical professionals repeat the same phrases…
“your case is a very interesting case”, “you need to stress less”, “you might want to consider this or that drug long term”

In 2014 new symptoms started to pop up. I was waking up to numb hands each morning. This quickly progressed to swollen, numb and fiery hands, all day long. So I then sought out a specialist for these symptoms, and that’s when I was diagnosed with an Autoimmune disease termed “MCTD” (Mixed Connective Tissue Disease).
At the time, I had NO idea what an autoimmune disease was. Let alone that Autoimmune disease was our nation’s biggest health obstacle, affecting 50 million people in the United States alone. Ultimately, I was told that my body was attacking itself. I was also told I’d have to remain on prescription drugs for the rest of my life, and that my organs would eventually start to fail. When I asked about how my diet/nutrition could be affecting my flare ups, I was told by a Medical doctor that food and nutrition had very little to do with my disease.

Things got REALLY bad before they got better. In addition to difficulty breathing, my hands were numb, swollen with weakened grip all day, and in a fiery pain all night. I was losing sleep for months at a time, losing energy and felt like I was running on fumes. My facial features were changing; I couldn’t be as active as I’d once been.
I felt depleted, and I was ultimately losing myself and the ability to perform simple tasks like getting dressed in the morning.

It seemed like up until this point, all medical practitioners were treating the symptom, when the proper approach would have been to investigate and treat the root cause. For a while I was in limbo without much understanding of how to get control of this whole thing. I decided to take a turn and give the holistic route a try. I started working with a Holistic Chiropractor who began by focusing on my body’s vitamin and mineral deficiencies; along with changing my nutritional habits. Within 6 months, I noticed that my symptoms started to decrease. It had become VERY clear to me, that my body was starting to heal, and the one thing I had changed heavily, was my nutrition and diet. I went from wearing arthritis gloves every night just to achieve 3-4 straight hours of sleep, to wearing them 3 times a week, to eventually not wearing them at all.
This was just the start of my healing journey, and little did I know, this was the start to discovering my passion in Nutrition and Wellness education.

For a long time, many loved ones didn’t know the depths of what I was going through, because I wasn’t voicing it very much. I didn’t want to give this ugly disease any more power by talking about it, so I downplayed it for quite some time. In your twenties, you want to feel normal and enjoy time with your friends. But when I was in pain and so agitated by that pain, I didn’t really want to be around people because I wasn’t capable of being myself. And honestly, I was so busy going THROUGH it that I didn’t even have a moment to spend on anything other than getting through each day. I sort of went into isolation mode.

Once I started seeing such positive results through shifting my nutritional habits, I started talking about it more and that’s when I began coming in contact with more and more people who were being affected either with an auto-immune disease or an inflammation related illness in general. I started sharing some of the information I had acquired along the way, and it was actually helping people. That’s when I realized I had to share more.

I became infatuated and started to have fun with alternative recipes and healing foods. So I thought I’d create HealthyKitchenHappyLife.com. Which ideally started as a place where I could share these recipes and provide information on the simple changes that people can make in their own kitchens, to either heal or prevent becoming susceptible to disease.

While addressing my health and diving deeper, I continued to learn more about nutrition, how the body works, autoimmune disease, the microbiome, the Mind-Body connection. I eventually switched paths professionally and became a Holistic Nutritionist. Once I started to work with clients, I knew I had to create more than another recipe blog.

I had to create a space, where all the information that at the time of my diagnosis was not so obvious, could exist. If I could help someone either at the start of their diagnosis or even further into it, by providing quality information and resources, help them avoid pain, then my dark times wouldn’t be a waste.

I believe this had to happen to me, for me to wake up and learn enough to help not only myself, but to help others reclaim their health. So HealthyKitchenHappyLife.com has evolved into a space where I can share quality information in a global format. Nutrition, practitioners, resources and options. Because in the end, we all want to feel good, and really LIVE life while we’re here.