There was a time when I believed my life would always be defined by seizures.
I was ten years old when I experienced my first seizure, and for years afterward, unanswered questions became just as much a part of my life as the diagnosis itself. Looking back now, I realize that journey eventually led me somewhere I never expected: to herbal medicine.
My name is Megan. I am a clinical herbalist, nutritionist, and flower essence practitioner, and this is the story of how I arrived here.
Looking Back
When I think about my childhood, I remember more than one health challenge. Whether those experiences were connected or simply part of my own unique story, I can't say with certainty. What I do know is that they shaped the questions I would spend years asking.
It began with frequent stomach aches after meals. Then came recurring ear infections, sore throats, and bouts of strep throat that eventually led to having my tonsils removed and tubes placed in my ears. Like many children, I accepted these experiences as part of life, never imagining they would become the beginning of a much larger journey.
Around the time I began menstruating, everything changed.
The Day Everything Changed
One afternoon, my mother woke me from a nap so we could leave for piano lessons. As we walked outside toward the car, I suddenly lost consciousness.
That afternoon I experienced my first generalized tonic-clonic seizure.
I was only ten years old.
In the days that followed came appointments, testing, uncertainty, and eventually a diagnosis of juvenile myoclonic epilepsy.
For my parents and me, the diagnosis brought as many questions as answers.
Why was this happening?
Would the seizures ever stop?
What would life look like?
No one could tell us.
The one certainty was that I needed medication.
Learning to Ask Better Questions
As a child, I had an endless supply of questions.
I remember asking my doctors and my parents the same thing over and over.
Why?
Why were the seizures happening?
Why me?
What was wrong with my body?
Most of those questions didn't have clear answers.
As the years passed, I never stopped asking them.
Looking back, I realize those questions became one of the greatest gifts of my life.
What began as fear slowly became curiosity.
Instead of accepting uncertainty as the end of the conversation, I wanted to understand my body better. That desire to learn eventually became the foundation of my career.
Living with Epilepsy
Throughout my teenage years and into adulthood, epilepsy shaped nearly every part of my life.
Medication changes became routine. Some helped for a while, while others brought side effects without providing the seizure control we hoped for. Years passed, and I found myself trying one medication after another while still searching for stability.
By the time I was twenty-five, I felt as though I had reached a crossroads.
Frequent seizures had taken away much of my independence. I was unable to drive. Holding a steady job had become increasingly difficult. Injuries from seizures sent me to the emergency room more times than I care to remember, including repeated shoulder dislocations that became a painful part of everyday life.
Physically, I was exhausted.
Emotionally, I was discouraged.
Yet beneath the frustration, I still believed there had to be another way to understand my health, not as a replacement for medical care, but as a way to become a more active participant in my own healing journey.
That hope kept me searching.
Discovering Herbalism
Around that time, I traveled to Colorado to visit family.
While we were there, we stopped at a small herbal apothecary, the first I had ever visited.
I still remember walking up to the counter and asking the herbalist a simple question:
"Do you have anything you would recommend for someone living with seizures?"
I expected to leave with a product.
Instead, I left with something much greater.
I left with the realization that there was an entire tradition of people who viewed health differently, people who asked questions I had never been asked before.
One of the herbs I brought home with me was Skullcap.
As I learned about the plant, brewed tea, and began studying herbal medicine, something within me shifted. My relationship with my health became less about searching for a single answer and more about learning to understand the incredible complexity of the human body.
That experience should not be interpreted as evidence that Skullcap treats epilepsy. Rather, it marked the beginning of my own exploration into herbal medicine and the realization that I wanted to spend my life learning about plants, nutrition, and the many ways we can support the body's natural processes alongside appropriate medical care.
Finding My Calling
The more I learned, the more I realized I had found something I had been searching for my entire life.
Within months, I enrolled at the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism.
For the first time, I wasn't simply learning how to live with a diagnosis.
I was learning a language.
A language that explored nutrition, physiology, botany, energetics, traditional herbal practices, and, perhaps most importantly, the art of observation.
Herbalism didn't teach me that there was one answer for every person.
It taught me that every person has a story.
That lesson has stayed with me ever since.
What Health Means to Me Today
Health means something very different to me today than it did when I was ten years old.
I no longer think of health as a destination that we either reach or fail to reach.
I see it as a relationship.
A relationship with our bodies.
With our choices.
With the seasons of our lives.
My own experiences taught me that healing is rarely linear. There are setbacks, victories, disappointments, and moments of profound hope. Sometimes progress comes quickly. More often, it arrives quietly through small, consistent choices that accumulate over time.
Those experiences also shaped the way I care for others.
When someone sits across from me during a consultation, I don't see a diagnosis.
I see a person with a story.
Someone who has likely asked many of the same questions I once asked.
Someone who deserves to be heard.
The Journey Continues
Opening MEGAN & CO. has been one of the greatest privileges of my life because it allows me to walk alongside people as they write the next chapters of their own stories.
I don't believe my purpose is to have every answer.
I believe it is to ask thoughtful questions, listen carefully, share what traditional herbalism and nutrition have to offer, and help people better understand the remarkable bodies they live in.
If my own journey has taught me anything, it is this:
Curiosity is powerful.
Hope is worth holding onto.
And sometimes the questions we begin asking as children become the very work we are meant to do.