“I believe every experience we go through in life, no matter how painful, is a gift. It is up to us to choose how to use that gift."
If I could go back and tell my younger self that…
I would end up going to university for 14 years, help my father fight stage-4 brain cancer, travel the world in desperate search for medical cures, become a widow in my 30’s, and lose everything. I would probably say, no thank you.
but, today…
I wouldn’t change it for the world because the struggles and the pain helped me find power of meditation and led me to what authentic medicine means to me.
“I believe every experience we go through in life, no matter how painful, is a gift. It is up to us to choose how to use that gift. The pain and struggles that I endured help me become the person & the doctor I am today”
Let’s back up first…
Growing up in a suburb outside of Seattle Washington, nothing ever felt quite right. My environment taught me that hard work is honorable, that being educated was necessary for high achievement, and that success and wealth is found in how many things one can accumulate rather than the pursuit to become a better person. I knew deep down that this way of life wasn’t right for me.
I started to question things more and more. I rebelled against authority and I questioned my parents and teachers. The outcome was an all-girls (behavior modification) boarding school in another state. I was 12 years old. I felt completely abandoned, alone, and helpless. The school was based on a reward system that allowed you to gain privileges if you did what they asked. I played the game well and reached the highest level but, this experience further ingrained the idea the only way I can be successful is to follow their rules.
In my soul, I knew things had to be different and that questioning is a good thing. As I look back, I believe that…
my intuitive ability to step back and question things is a trait that helped me see beyond the statistics, question what’s possible, and think outside of the box as a doctor.
The diagnosis…
I was still in search for my authentic path and I fell hard for the illusion of success in my early twenties. I was trying hard to prove myself to the world. I was majoring in business at the Albers School of Business & Economics at Seattle University. I even got the coveted internship at Merrill Lynch.
Then, moment that changed everything. One day, in 2002, I was home from college for the weekend and my father said he was having trouble getting out his words. He called his doctor and they told him to go to the hospital immediately. I went with him and remembered waiting in the ER when my father came back telling me… “They found something in my brain the size of a golf ball”. I was devastated, scared, and felt helpless. My father was my best friend and my biggest support. He was diagnosed with stage-4 “terminal” brain cancer and given 3 months to live.
I went from a carefree college student to a full-time caretaker, medical researcher, and his patient-advocate. I was 20 years old. After learning of his diagnosis, I immediately read the statistics. He had a less than 1% chance of surviving 10 years (that means that he had a 99% chance of dying….
I will never forget the moment when the doctor told me that there’s nothing they could do and to make plans for hospice. I went through the whole process of… why? how could this happen? he was so young? can I handle being a caretaker? who am I to make these huge medical decisions? But something clicked inside of me, and I knew that the only way my father would survive was to do everything different than what the doctors told him.
Between going to business school and being my father’s caretaker, I spent every “extra” hour I had in the medical school library. I read countless medical journals and relentlessly searched for clinical trials and alternative therapies. I attended medical conferences around the United States and met with dozens of well-respected physicians always asking them a long list of questions. The protocols that he was doing were working and the doctors around me kept encouraging me to go to medical school. The director of neuro-oncology invited me to attend grand rounds with him each week.
My father went on to live another 17 years after his initial diagnosis.
I felt like I found my calling…
Following my heart…
I can recall the exact day when I made the decision to become a doctor… I was showing a large vacant building in downtown Seattle when I was working in commercial real-estate and finishing up my MBA. I was standing in this large empty space alone awaiting a client meeting and I thought… “Is this it in life?” Sure, I could make a ton of money and was about to close a huge deal but, is this it??? The idea of spending the rest of my life selling buildings and investing other people’s money made me depressed.
It became impossible to suppress the feeling that my real calling was in medicine. I knew that I had to listen to my heart instead of my head. I felt overwhelmed at the idea of going back to school for 8 more years (3 years of premed and 5 years of medical school) as I was just finishing up 6 years of business school, but it was the only way.
I immediately enrolled in college and began working on my premedical studies during the day and finishing up my masters at night. My passion for medicine and the thought that I could offer hope to people like my father fueled my desire to complete my premed studies and go to med school.
Becoming a doctor…
After completing my premedical studies, I chose Bastyr University for my doctorate because of the philosophy behind the medicine and patient care. I spent the next 5 years completing the in-residence rigorous academic program. In addition, I studied under leading physicians in neurology, environmental medicine, psychiatry, and women’s health. I went to the jungles of central American and shadowed under Mayan healers and bush doctors. I was the first in my field to complete a preceptorship in neuro-oncology at the University of Washington. I enrolled in another medical program to take additional classes in infectious disease and immunology at the University of Nebraska. Upon completing my clinical training and taking my board exams, I moved to California to practice medicine.
In 2014, twelve years after my father’s initial diagnosis of terminal brain cancer, I spoke as a leading expert at the conference that I once attended as a scared and desperate caregiver. It was UCLA’s (the University of California, Los Angeles) annual brain tumor conference, and my father was in the audience. I was honored to share our story and the insights and research that I had acquired along the way. At this moment, I finally felt like I was fulfilling my mission.
I was building my clinical practice in Santa Barbara and started a local non-profit. I was also getting ready to publish a book that I had been working on for the last five years. I just needed a quiet place to go and finish writing…
I went to Greece to write a book…
I stayed in a small traditional Greek village on the island of Crete where once again my path and perspective would change forever. I met the love of my life. It was an immediate soul connection that was understood on a deeper level. I saw him. I still remember the first time we met. We were sitting at tables next to each other at a small rustic café. He introduced himself to me and asked what brought me to this village. I told him that I was a doctor and I was writing a book… and he said, “I hate doctors”. He went on to explain that the only reason that he was alive today was because he listened to himself and held his power throughout all the treatments that he endured when he was diagnosed with cancer years earlier. We got married later that year and I never published that book.
I moved to that small traditional village that I was once a tourist just passing through. It was a big change from my life before in California, but it was exactly where I was supposed to be. Instead of opening up a large clinical practice and publishing a book in the United States, I went deep within myself. We chose to live a simple life in nature. My husband introduced me to the spiritual side of medicine. I studied breath work, meditation methods, mind-body techniques, philosophy, religion, and spent infinite hours with him discussing the root cause of illness. I learned more about medicine and healing in these years than all the years prior.
The fight of a lifetime…
Then, in one moment… everything changed. My husband’s cancer came back. I asked myself… how could his cancer come back? Why him, why now? Over the next two years I lived with my husband in China and Austria seeking the most innovative treatments for his condition.
I had to navigate care for my husband in foreign countries when I didn’t speak the language. I had to make critical medical decisions on the spot using my medical knowledge and intuition. All of my education, training, and beliefs were put to the test.
My husband passed away after a long and hard fight. In the end, he didn’t die of his cancer, but an expected event that no one could have foreseen. I believe he finished his journey here and figured out exactly what he needed to do. There was a moment several days after my husband’s death when I was sitting alone inside our house in Greece. I was devasted, and I started thinking “what if”… what if I had just done this… or what if I checked this…. and at that very moment a large stream of water started pouring on my head from the ceiling. I got the message immediately. I never did a “what if” again and I never found where that water came from in our house.
I understood that I’m not in control of life or death… and its ego-based to think that I could change the course of one’s path. I can only take my knowledge, training, and life experiences to help support my patients journey, empower them, and assist the healing process within each of them. The rest is up to them and…
My dark night of the soul…
I lost my husband, my father, our dog, and our home in a matter of 3 months.
For the next two years I lived alone in the forest in a cabin on the river, far away from the city and people.
I searched for the truth. I questioned everything. I asked myself if I should still be a doctor. I questioned the benefits of medicine and what it all means. I cried so much that I developed sinus issues. I suffered from grief brain. I wanted to move to the Himalayas, find a cave, or and live in a monastery.
Until I realized that my journey is not finished yet…
I knew deep down that I couldn’t go live at a monastery or in a cave, as much as I wanted to at times. In the darkness I gained clarity. I needed to be in this world and take the wisdom and the gifts of my life experiences to become a better version of myself. I did some deep inner work and got honest with myself and what I needed to do. I had to allow myself to feel uncomfortable, have the courage to open my heart again, and be like water; moving and adapting to life’s constant changes. My real test would be to live fully in this world while staying balanced within and to be the doctor that I would want to have.
I will always remember a time that I was feeling lost and frustrated and I told my late husband Haris that I felt like I didn’t have a purpose in life anymore and he said…purpose by itself”
My journey taught me that…
Statistics should be used as motivation, to light the fire within, but refuse to accept a number as your fate.
Material wealth means absolutely nothing if you don’t have your health.
Each challenge and painful experience has a gift hidden within.
You must follow your heart and quiet your mind.
Everything changes all the time, so embrace it.
Nothing is impossible if you believe it’s not.
Faith is the strongest medicine
Discovering real medicine…
I was ready to see patients again, but this time with a different approach. As a physician that studied naturopathic medicine, I was already trained to view the body holistically. To treat the whole person. But, something was missing…
What I realized was that I needed to support…
the mind, body and spirit together.
I noticed that once my patients were able to align their thoughts with their actions, they felt better. Today, I incorporate many different modalities into my clinical practice that’s completely customized based on each person’s needs.
Which Brings Me To You
At the end of the day, nothing else matters once you have lost your health. When you feel horrible, you can’t enjoy anything. The stresses that used to seem like a big deal are now tiny in comparison to an illness. I get it, and I’ve dedicated my entire life to the pursuit of unlocking the healing power within you.
I’ve seen thousands of patients over the years and in my experience, the difference between feeling better and getting better lies within the mindset and the willingness to do the work. The real work comes from staying consistent, keeping yourself on track, and being willing to push yourself on multiple levels at the same time by aligning your mind and body. I believe you can do it.
I want you to live a healthy life, to enjoy the little things, and to have the freedom to do what you want. I realized that my mission is to help people like you overcome your health issue, to remove the barriers that were holding you back from feeling good, and to have the freedom you deserve.
