From Surviving to Thriving.
A nurse. A cancer survivor. A Doctor of Nursing Practice who spent years learning to care for the sick — and then learned, the hard way, how to care for herself.
"A diagnosis may be part of your story. It does not have to define your future."
Read Patricia's storyWhere It Began
My journey into functional medicine began long before I knew there was a name for it. It began in nursing school in the mid‑1980s. I was learning anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, and the science of caring for disease — but nursing taught me something equally important: we don't care for diseases. We care for human beings.
We are biopsychosocial beings whose physical health is interconnected with our minds, our relationships, our experiences, and the environments in which we live. That idea stayed with me throughout my career. I became fascinated by the story behind the patient — what I came to think of as the relationship between our biography and our biology.
What has happened to this person? Where have they lived? What have they experienced?
How do they eat and sleep? How do they move? What are their sources of stress and connection?
What have they inherited? What happened before the diagnosis? And how might all of those factors interact with their biology and influence their health?
For years, I asked those questions about my patients. I just wasn't asking them about myself.
For most of my early life, I considered myself healthy. I grew up in a blue‑collar environment where prevention wasn't something we talked much about. I smoked. I didn't always eat well. I didn't prioritize sleep. I worked hard and carried stress without thinking very much about what it might eventually mean for my health. When you're young, your body can be remarkably forgiving. At 40, I was still at a healthy weight and had no significant chronic illness.
Then everything changed.
The Early Years
When Everything Changed
My brother died from alcoholism when I was 41. Watching someone I loved struggle with addiction and ultimately lose his life left me with profound grief and questions about the experiences that had brought him to that point.
At the same time, my mother was facing breast cancer for the third time. I cared for her as she became increasingly ill. As a nurse, I was accustomed to being the person who helped. This time, I couldn't fix it. My mother died at 64. I was 44.
And one year later, I became the patient. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. I had my thyroid removed, recovered, and continued with my life. I told myself that perhaps it was stress and exhaustion. I didn't really change the way I was living.
Then, at 45, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. This time there was no pretending that everything was fine. Part of my lung was removed. I underwent chemotherapy. And when treatment ended, I had survived cancer — but I was not healthy.
Rock Bottom
By my mid‑40s, I weighed approximately 230 pounds and had a BMI of about 42.
Obstructive sleep apnea · prediabetes · hypertension · early kidney disease · profound fatigue · pain · significant functional limitations
Some days, getting out of bed and going to work took everything I had. I had spent my professional life caring for sick people, and suddenly I looked at myself and realized: I had become one of them.
I remember discussing my health with my primary care physician and hearing, essentially: "At least you survived cancer. Be grateful and keep going." And I was grateful. Modern medicine had saved my life. I needed surgery. I needed chemotherapy. I needed physicians, nurses, medications, and the science that gave me the opportunity to survive.
But somewhere inside me, I knew something else.
"Surviving wasn't enough. If I was going to survive, I wanted to learn how to thrive."
The Christmas That Changed My Life
There was one moment during my cancer journey that changed the way I would think about life forever. It was around Christmas, only a couple of weeks after part of my lung had been removed. I was preparing to begin chemotherapy. I was frightened and deeply depressed. Everywhere I looked, people were preparing for Christmas — shopping, exchanging gifts, making plans, talking about the coming year.
"How can I be happy? I don't even know if I'm going to live to see next Christmas. They're making plans because they have something to look forward to. I don't have that anymore," I said to my father.
He looked at me and asked: "What makes you think any of those people are going to be alive tomorrow?"
Then he said something I have carried with me ever since: "Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow. Just because you have a diagnosis doesn't mean you're any worse off than anyone else. You can start today. You can hope and dream and plan as though you're going to live tomorrow."
Something shifted inside me. I realized cancer was threatening my future. But fear was taking away my present. And I decided I wasn't willing to give it another day.
"I would live every day and die only once, rather than die a little every day and never truly live."
That was my turning point.
From "Why Me?" to "What Can I Do?"
I didn't approach cancer as though I were at war with my body. I chose something different. In my own private and spiritual way, I began talking to my cancer cells — not because I was grateful for cancer, but because I needed to find meaning in what had happened. I imagined them as messengers that had forced me to pay attention.
I hear you. I understand that something needs to change. I'm listening now.
And then I told them they could leave. Their message had been received.
I began taking a deep look at my life — my nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, grief, emotional health, spirituality, environment, habits, and the experiences that had shaped my biography. And I learned an important distinction.
"Responsibility is not the same as blame."
I didn't blame myself for developing cancer. Disease is far too complex for that. But I could take responsibility for the parts of my health that were within my control. And that gave me tremendous power. If I could take responsibility for what I could influence, I could take responsibility for my wellness.
Rebuilding Myself
I began changing my life. I changed how I ate. I started exercising. I practiced yoga. I began mindfulness and meditation. I prayed. I explored spirituality more deeply. I worked on reconnecting with myself, my heritage, my ancestry, nature, and something greater than myself. And slowly, I began rebuilding. Not simply my body. Myself.
By the time I reached 50, I had lost approximately 50 pounds and weighed around 165 pounds. I could move again. I felt stronger. And something even more important had happened — I had stopped allowing my past to dictate my future.
My history mattered. My losses mattered. My genetics mattered. My behaviors mattered. My illness mattered. But none of them had to become the final chapter of my story.
Meeting My Mentors
As I rebuilt my physical health, I also began rebuilding my inner life. Books became important mentors — each one teaching me something I needed to hear.
Dr. Wayne Dyer's work helped me understand the importance of living in the present and exploring the spiritual dimensions of the challenges we experience. Bruce Lipton and Gregg Braden encouraged me to think more deeply about belief, biology, environment, and our relationship with our internal world. Louise Hay taught me another lesson I desperately needed:
"Give yourself the compassion you so freely give to everyone else."
That was difficult for me. As a nurse, caring for other people had become part of my identity. When I walked into a patient's room, I wanted to be completely present — I wanted that person to receive my compassion, attention, knowledge, and care. Eventually I realized: I deserved to offer myself that same care.
Mindfulness, meditation, affirmations, prayer, movement, nutrition, and self‑compassion became parts of my recovery. But the clinician in me still wanted more.
I Had Learned Disease. Now I Wanted to Understand Health.
That search eventually led me more deeply into functional medicine. And the learning curve was tremendous. I began exploring the complex relationships among cellular function, mitochondrial health, metabolism, nutrition, inflammation, detoxification pathways, sleep, stress physiology, movement, environmental exposures, genetics, and gene expression. I wanted to understand root causes and contributing factors rather than simply accumulating diagnoses.
And I began realizing that functional medicine was bringing me back to something nursing had taught me decades earlier: everything is connected. The person is not a collection of organs. And the patient is not a diagnosis. A human being has a biology, but they also have a biography. Functional medicine gave me another framework through which to investigate the relationship between the two.
I didn't have to choose between conventional medicine and functional medicine. I could respect what each could appropriately contribute. Modern medicine helped save my life. Whole‑person care helped me rebuild the way I lived it.
The Revelation: Resilience
Today, as a Nurse Practitioner working with people with neurological disease, I hear two questions repeatedly after someone receives a life‑changing diagnosis: "How long am I going to live?" And: "What is my life going to look like?"
I understand those questions. I asked them too. Patients want to know whether they'll be walking in ten years. Whether they'll still be working. Whether they'll remain independent. Whether they'll be able to travel, play with their grandchildren, or live the life they imagined.
None of us has that crystal ball. But my own physician gave me valuable advice when I was facing cancer. He told me that statistics couldn't tell him exactly what would happen to me. His advice was simple: focus on getting well, and go live your life.
Years later, I understand the wisdom in those words differently. There are things we cannot control. But there are also things we can influence. And between those two realities lies something incredibly important.
Not pretending illness doesn't exist. Not positive thinking your way out of disease. Not rejecting appropriate medical treatment. Resilience is developing the capacity — physically, emotionally, functionally, and spiritually — to meet what happens to us and continue moving forward. That is what I had spent years rebuilding within myself.
The Return
I am now 61 years old. I weigh approximately 136 pounds — less than I weighed on my wedding day almost 28 years ago. And I feel healthier than I have at any other point in my life.
At 45, I wondered whether I would make it to 50. At 50, I was rebuilding my health. At 61, I am thinking about longevity and healthspan. The last decade has been one of the best decades of my life.
"How well can I live for however many years I am given?"
I know I cannot control everything my body may experience in the future. But I also know I am more than my body. I am more than a diagnosis. I am more than my medical history. And every day I can ask: what can I do today to become the best version of myself tomorrow?
That is the gift I have returned from this journey wanting to share.
A career spent learning what illness doesn't tell you.
My clinical journey has taken me through diverse areas of healthcare — critical care, cardiology, and, more recently, caring for patients through the COVID‑19 pandemic. Each of these experiences shaped the practitioner I've become and reinforced how complex the human body, and the experience of illness, can be.
Today I practice as a Neurology Nurse Practitioner at a neuroscience center, where working closely with people living with chronic neurologic disease has given me a deep appreciation for both the complexity of illness and the resilience of the people living with it. A diagnosis often answers one question — what do I have? But for many people living with chronic illness, other questions remain: why is this happening to me, what's contributing to how I feel, and what else can I do?
Those questions became the foundation of my doctoral research. As part of my Doctor of Nursing Practice work, I developed a wellness education program for individuals living with multiple sclerosis, focused on nutrition, physical activity, and the mind‑body connection. What began as doctoral research became something lasting — that program continues today at the neuroscience center where I practice, alongside patients' neurological treatment.
My experiences in nursing, neurology, chronic disease care, holistic health, and doctoral research ultimately led me to functional medicine — and to founding Stronger Within.
Background at a Glance
- Clinical ExperienceCritical care, cardiology, COVID‑19 patient care
- Current PracticeNeurology Nurse Practitioner, neuroscience center
- Doctoral ResearchWellness education program for multiple sclerosis (nutrition, movement, mind‑body connection)
- Holistic TrainingBirchtree Center for Healthcare Transformation
- CertificationUsui Reiki Master
Beyond the Clinic
I am a New Jersey native and live along the Jersey Shore, where my lifelong connection to the ocean remains an important part of who I am. Outside of medicine, I am a wildlife, travel, and underwater photographer — my camera has taken me around the world and beneath the ocean, photographing wildlife and marine life, with whales holding a particularly special place in my heart.
Photography may seem very different from medicine, but they ask many of the same things of me: patience, curiosity, careful observation, and a willingness to look beyond what is immediately visible. Behind the camera, I've learned that what we see at first glance is rarely the entire story — and I bring that same curiosity to medicine.
My personal journey and my professional journey have finally come together.
I spent decades learning how to care for others. Illness forced me to learn how to care for myself. Now I want to bring those two experiences together to help people standing at their own health crossroads.
The person who has just received a diagnosis.
The cancer survivor who has completed treatment but still doesn't feel well.
The person living with MS or another chronic condition, wondering what their future will look like.
The person struggling with obesity, metabolic disease, autoimmune illness, post‑viral symptoms, fatigue, pain, or multiple chronic conditions.
And the person who isn't sick yet but recognizes the warning signs and says, "I don't want to continue down this road."
I want to help that person look beyond simply managing a diagnosis and begin exploring the modifiable factors influencing their health through a personalized, functional, whole‑person framework. I want to help them rebuild resilience. Restore function. Reconnect with hope. And understand that wherever they are on the health continuum, they can start today.
"We cannot rewrite yesterday. We cannot guarantee tomorrow. But we can influence what we do with today — and what we do today becomes part of the story we carry into tomorrow."
Restore Your Health. Reimagine Your Future.
A diagnosis may be part of your story. But it does not have to define your future.
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