About Me

It all started with an accident.

Life was going along, and then one day, everything changed. My husband was riding his bicycle and someone driving a car didn’t see him. I thought the broken bones would take longer to heal than the concussion, but I was wrong. We found ourselves in the throes of post-concussion syndrome. I learned that despite having a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology, I didn’t really know much of anything about concussions.

At that time of the accident, I was five months pregnant with our second child. I desperately wanted my husband to be healed by the time our new baby arrived. He wasn’t. As we neared the one-year anniversary of the accident and my husband was a long way off from full recovery, I found myself wondering what else I could do to support (and hopefully speed up) his recovery.

One thing I could do something about was our nutrition.

I started by trying to get more nutrients into my husband with green smoothies. Then I took out wheat, having heard it could be inflammatory. My thought was that inflammation can’t be good for a brain that’s trying to heal. Interestingly, going off wheat left me feeling like I had the flu at first. But then…I started to feel better than I did before.

Looking for gluten-free recipes, I bumped into the Paleo diet on the internet and voraciously learned about nutrient-dense foods from the Paleo Mom. Pretty soon, we were full-on Paleo. Going on the Paleo diet seemed to help everyone’s health in our family. We watched my son’s eczema disappear, and our energy seemed more stable throughout the day.

At this point, I began to wonder about the autoimmune protocol (AIP) of the Paleo diet that I had learned about on the Paleo Mom‘s website. The AIP diet took out other potentially inflammatory foods, like nightshades and nuts. I decided we should try it, again thinking that reducing inflammation might bring more healing for my husband’s post-concussion syndrome. Little did I know that we would stay on it for about two years.

Two years after the accident, my husband returned to work, but it took some time after that to get to full recovery. Diet alone wouldn’t have gotten my husband to a full recovery, but I do believe our diet helped support healing. And having made these diet changes, our whole family’s health was better than before…not perfect, but definitely better.

Although my health was better on our new diet, I still had some inflammatory issues lingering. I knew that there must be something more than just food affecting my health.

Trusted friends of ours began sharing what they were learning about environmental health from a medical physician–how the whole environment around us can impact our health. That started me on a new learning adventure about ways to clean up the things beyond food that go into our bodies (e.g. air, water) and how to help the body clean itself up (i.e. detoxification through natural processes and ways to assist these processes). I’ve started to understand my health story over the course of my life and how certain buildings affected my health (some buildings in good ways and others in not-so-good ways). It’s been incredibly fascinating to put some pieces together and learn about specific environmental triggers for myself.

I see how God has graciously guided my family on this wild journey that started with an accident. I feel like there is always more to learn, but I have come to realize how interconnected our physical, mental, and spiritual health is.

I’ve realized when one area of our health is suffering, it is difficult to have life in full in the other areas.

That’s why these words of Jesus resonate deeply with me: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10). My hope is to join Jesus in His work to bring fullness of life to people by supporting healing of the mind, body, and soul. My prayer is that God will guide you in your own journey to better health–physically, mentally, and spiritually.

With a humble heart,

Monica

Quick Facts About Me:

I live in Calgary, Canada, with my husband and two wonderful children. I have a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. After graduating, I spent nine years working in maternal and child health research. Given my work experience, I believe it’s beneficial to consider research evidence when looking at health interventions, but there is still a lot that we don’t know about the human body and its interactions with its environments. That being said, I believe in putting my reasoning skills to use when research hasn’t yet been done in a particular area. I also strongly believe it’s important to pay attention to what our body may be trying to tell us through its symptoms and looking for patterns of when our symptoms occur. As I learned, if you’re not looking for the pattern, you won’t see it.