Why I created Living Signal

Years into that search, I was finally diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. The diagnosis didn’t start my education. It only explained the quiet, lifelong searching I’d been doing without knowing why.

Then I learned something else. Ehlers-Danlos syndrome can be hereditary. I have a daughter. I wasn't assuming she would experience the same things I had, and I wasn't waiting for something to happen. But I made a promise to myself that if she ever needed someone who understood these conditions, I was going to be ready. So I kept learning because I wanted to understand the human body well enough that, if the day ever came, I could help point her in the right direction. That promise changed the way I studied.

When I was growing up, I always knew something wasn't right. My body seemed to be telling a story no one could explain.

At 18, I opened a yoga studio because I wanted to help people feel better in their own bodies and because I didn't want other young girls growing up feeling the way I had. Yoga, mindfulness, adn awareness of self was a foundation that I felt was important then.

My education kept expanding past books. I sought out people with very different ways of understanding the body: an acupuncturist, a naturopathic physician who'd been a NASA rocket scientist, homeopaths, biologists, psychologists, physicians across specialties, herbalists, rehab professionals. I wasn't looking for one philosophy. I wanted to know where these disciplines agreed, where they clashed, and what the evidence actually supported.

At 18, I opened a yoga studio because I wanted to help people feel better in their own bodies and because I didn't want other young girls growing up feeling the way I had. Yoga, mindfulness, adn awareness of self was a foundation that I felt was important then.

Tools to Understand Your Body

I broke bones. Doctors found a tumor in my arm. I had digestive problems from an early age, allergies, symptoms that never fit neatly into one diagnosis. Appointment after appointment, test after test, I was told everything looked normal, or that no one could explain why my body kept doing what it did. I didn't have an explanation. I just knew I was different. Looking back, that's where my curiosity began.Long before I knew what Ehlers-Danlos syndrome was, I was fascinated by the human body.

Around 14, I started studying anatomy and physiology just to understand how it worked. As I got older, I realized I wasn't only curious about the body, I was curious about my own mind. I spent a surprising amount of time wondering why I thought the way I did: why I naturally looked for patterns, why one question always led to ten more, why I connected ideas other people treated as unrelated. I didn't have a word like metacognition for it yet. I just couldn't stop asking why, and that became the foundation of how I learned. I wasn't studying because I knew I had a connective tissue disorder, I was studying because I loved understanding how the body functions, and because, deep down, I hoped it might someday explain what I'd experienced my entire life.

Then life gave me another reason to keep going. My sister began showing signs consistent with the same underlying connective tissue challenges. But her story looked very different from mine. Mine presented early and centered primarily around gastrointestinal, autonomic, vascular, and connective tissue complications, Hers hit later and went neurological fast: seizures, sometimes up to 100 in a day, and hemiplegic migraines with stroke-like episodes that still affect her.Watching someone you love experience that kind of neurological decline changes you.

It reinforced something I had already begun to suspect: Even when people share the same underlying connective tissue disorder, the body doesn't read a textbook. Every person compensates differently. Every nervous system responds differently. Every story unfolds differently. That realization fundamentally changed the way I approached complex illness. I started asking, What systems are interacting to create this person's unique pattern?

The Moment Everything Changed

In early 2025, my health reached a point I never imagined. I had developed severe gastroparesis and Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome. I weighed just 94 pounds. Eating had become incredibly difficult, and my body was beginning to shut down. By that point, I had seen many specialists. I'd been to Stanford and UC Davis. Both told me my EDS was too complex for them to safely operate The only option that remained was a feeding tube but had been warned that in my specific situation, there was a high possibility that my stomach could become permanently nonfunctional if I went that route.

After my final Zoom appointment with the last specialist, I walked into my kitchen and just stood there. For the first time in my life, I felt completely directionless. I remember staring at the floor, trying to figure out what came next.

I honestly didn't know if I was going to survive. Then I looked up at the clock. It read 2:22. I was born in Room 222, at 2:22 p.m., on January 2. Throughout my life, those numbers have always carried deep personal meaning. Whether someone calls that God, faith, providence, or simply coincidence, in that moment I experienced it as a reminder to keep going. So I did.

I stopped waiting for someone else to find the answers. There was one major problem. By that point, my mast cell activation syndrome had become so severe that nearly everything I tried caused my body to react. I had been reduced to eating only 3 foods because almost everything else triggered symptoms. All spices were off the table. Many supplements that were supposed to help made me feel worse instead. Every time I thought I had found something that should support my body, my mast cells often responded in the exact opposite way I had hoped.

Thankfully, I wasn't starting from scratch. By then, I already understood how connective tissue, the autonomic nervous system, the immune system, digestion, and vascular function influenced one another. The challenge was figuring out why my body wasn't responding the way physiology suggested it should. I had to understand my own patterns well enough to predict how introducing one change might ripple through the rest of my system.

For the next eight months, every food and every supplement was an experiment, every symptom was data. There were no weekends. No shortcuts. My mind revolved around reading, documenting, experimenting carefully, and trying to understand why my body responded the way it did. Every day I read research. I mapped patterns. I questioned assumptions. I studied the physiology behind motility, connective tissue, the autonomic nervous system, immune function, nutrition, and recovery. I completely changed the way I ate. I built a carefully structured supplement program. I focused on restoring my digestive function one step at a time. I worked on calming my nervous system. I paid close attention to my mindset, because I knew fear and chronic stress were part of the physiology too.

Slowly, things began to change. My digestion became more functional. I was finally able to tolerate more food. I regained nearly twenty pounds, going from 94 pounds to 113 pounds. My body became more stable. Life became possible again and I had a clear patterned map of why my system was doing what it was doing.

I also want to be honest though. Because of the anatomy created by the connective tissue disorder, flares still happen. My gastroparesis has improved, but it hasn't disappeared. I know that if I lose enough weight again, the fat pad supporting the Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome can thin and problems can arise again. These conditions are still part of my life, and I continue to manage them every day using the same strategies that helped me improve. I still rely on supplements to support my gastrointestinal motility, nutrient absorption, and maintaining a healthy weight. Because of the underlying physiology of the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and related conditions, these are not temporary interventions, they're likely to remain part of how I care for my body for the rest of my life.

That experience taught me something I'll never forget.

Chronic illness isn't always about finding a cure. Sometimes it's about understanding your body well enough to support it more effectively, recognize its patterns, and make informed decisions over a lifetime.

It also changed the way I think about people. Before my own health collapsed, I don't think I fully appreciated how resilient we can become when life leaves us no other choice. I learned that we're capable of far more than we often give ourselves credit for. We're capable of learning. We're capable of asking better questions. We're capable of understanding the basics of our own physiology and becoming active participants in our healthcare instead of feeling like passive observers waiting for someone else to connect the dots. That doesn't mean replacing physicians or believing we have all the answers. It means recognizing that we have an important role to play in understanding our own bodies. No one will ever spend as much time living inside your body as you will. Learning how it functions, how it responds, and how its systems interact is one of the most empowering things you can do.

For a long time, my research was about survival. It was about getting through another day. It was about finding enough answers to keep my body functioning when I wasn't sure what tomorrow would look like. But as my health became more stable, something changed. I realized everything I had spent years building, every notebook, every research paper, every physiology map, every pattern I had documented, could help someone else ask better questions about their own body.

I can't diagnose disease. I can't promise outcomes. And I don't believe there is one answer that works for everyone. But I can promise you this: I will take the time to understand how your symptoms fit together instead of looking at them one by one. I will question assumptions. I will follow the physiology wherever it leads, even if the answer isn't obvious. And if I don't know something, I'll tell you. Because that's how I've approached my own body for years, and it's how I'll approach yours.

Living Signal isn't built on having all the answers.

It's built on believing that every person's story deserves thoughtful investigation.

I broke bones. Doctors found a tumor in my arm. I had digestive problems from an early age, allergies, symptoms that never fit neatly into one diagnosis. Appointment after appointment, test after test, I was told everything looked normal, or that no one could explain why my body kept doing what it did. I didn't have an explanation. I just knew I was different. Looking back, that's where my curiosity began.Long before I knew what Ehlers-Danlos syndrome was, I was fascinated by the human body.

Around 14, I started studying anatomy and physiology just to understand how it worked. As I got older, I realized I wasn't only curious about the body, I was curious about my own mind. I spent a surprising amount of time wondering why I thought the way I did: why I naturally looked for patterns, why one question always led to ten more, why I connected ideas other people treated as unrelated. I didn't have a word like metacognition for it yet. I just couldn't stop asking why, and that became the foundation of how I learned. I wasn't studying because I knew I had a connective tissue disorder, I was studying because I loved understanding how the body functions, and because, deep down, I hoped it might someday explain what I'd experienced my entire life.