my story: Why I became a fitness nurse
I was tired of working within the walls of a system designed to keep people sick.
By this time, I was a nurse for 15 years.
I knew I was made for more.
I worked primarily in gerontology, community health, women's research, interdisciplinary education, case management and change implementation projects. Sounds complex but in truth, these were areas where I needed to put some puzzle pieces together and figure out where the system failed my family.
I was 14 when my Lola (grandma) suffered a stroke. I was told my Lolo (grandpa) fought to keep her alive when the rest of the family was told by her medical team it was time to give up. They were always inseparable and the love they had for each other was one of a kind. He dedicated the rest of his life to caring for her. She required 24-hour support til she passed at the age of 94. She suffered a stroke at a young age of 65.
Fast forward, I was about to turn 28 when my Dad died from a cerebral aneurysm. He was 49 years young. The time went so slow and so fast, I barely yet vividly remember this experience. Having been a case manager for 5 years and knowing what I learned about chronic health, I started to inner stand that our system was not designed to care for our health. It was created to manage disease.
The convenience lifestyle and obesity epidemic changed the life expectancy of the baby boomer generation and beyond. Inactivity, smoking, poor eating habits and incomplete food choices compared to the older generations, have led to a knowing that today's youth are not likely to outlive their parents.
In Canada, chronic diseases account for 89% of all deaths and more than $80 billion in annual health care costs.
Some alarming stats:
75% of health care spending is used to support just 4 chronic health conditions: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and obesity
75% of these conditions are a direct result of behaviours and habits. This means we can fix this!
80% of cardiovascular disease are preventable. This includes hypertension, cerebral hemmorage and cardiac arrest
60% of cancers are preventable. Yes! These include breast, prostate, endometrial and colon cancers; and
more than 90% of obesity cases are preventable
Preventable!!!
Everything I learned in nursing school didn't get into the WHY or root cause of these conditions.
My nursing education and training revolved around:
a focus on symptoms to collect and used to support a disease
systems specialization to narrow down a diagnosis
prescription drugs, antibiotics, chemotherapy
acute and primary care models with a physician gatekeeper
more than
digging for the root cause of the symptom expression
gathering a holistic perspective of the client experience
exploring food and exercise as medicine
preventative care and personal responsibility
I was frustrated by the limits of the conventional healthcare system, which was focused on triaging illness more than making people healthy.
How can we be healthy in an unhealthy medical system?
I promised myself that I was going to figure this out.
In the midst of this frustration, I counted on nature walks and hikes to help me think. I turned to strength training to pull me through heavy life experiences. I found hot yoga helped me learn about the mind and body connection.
I filled in my time on the weekends experimenting with diet trends, detox protocols, popular workout programs and to push the needle, I prepared for bikini competitions to distract me from life working in corporate health care.
Fitness saved me.
Movement and nature settled my mind. Muscle building showed me that strength comes when we keep putting in the reps in the gym and in life. Yoga taught me the meaning of presence and gave me the safe space to feel grief, hurt, sadness, anger, joy and extreme gratitude.
I met people who also focused on preventative practices to keep away from the medical system and outside of the doctor’s office. They were independent, self aware and took full responsibility in the future of their health.
I learned more about what health should be through this fitness journey than I did in nursing school and my years working in the corporate healthcare system.
As a case manager, the recurring comment was, “Had I taken better care of myself, I wouldn't be in this position of needing home care services and nursing home facility placement.”
I was put to the test when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I turned 35. I wasn’t about to lose another parent to a condition when I knew that preventative health measures have been found to shrink tumour growth … another piece of news I did NOT learn in my nursing education but through my own diligent research and rabbit hole digging.
I taught her about her diagnosis, had her change her eating habits, worked on her mindset and put her through frequent strength training sessions. She decided she would take an active role in her health and refused to rely solely on the oncologist and radiologist recommendations. We planned together how she was going to approach treatment. I discovered a lot in this process and with full intention and energy towards her recovery, the cancer is gone.
Fitness saved my mom.
If it took me this long to figure this out, who else didn’t know? Who else can fitness save?
Evolution demands struggle, tension, conflict, and challenge.— Dan Koe
It was 2009 when I knew I could combine my nursing experience with my love for fitness.
I sought everyone and anyone open to what I was offering.
Health is not the absence of disease.
Health is not just normal or abnormal.
Health is the ability to adapt to one’s environment and a nurse has an important role in encouraging the public to focus on exercise as medicine.
In my delight, I started to meet people from all walks of life with a variety of dis-eases, who knew that fitness would help them but didn’t know where to start.
Busy professionals, shift workers, corporate executives, retired seniors and stressed out students started calling for help.
Mary Ann, Your Fitness Nurse was born.
For next 3 years, I collected data and recorded my experiences. My findings (as seen below) were presented at the Canadian Nurses Association conference in 2014 and the rest is history.
Life became meaningful again because I was given the gift of experience to notice the things that the average individual didn’t.
This was the more I was made for.
That’s my story.
I hope you gained some value from this, if so, please share and comment below.
Committed to your success,
Mary Ann, Your Fitness Nurse
You can access the poster presentation below.