Who We Are - My Blog

CEO & Founder—Karen Prescod

When I first began to experience pain, I had no idea of the path that it would lead me down. I grew up running the land, climbing trees for the perfectly ripened guava, and bathing in the essence of waterfalls in my native country of Trinidad. As a former model and champion martial artist, I relied on the strength, flexibility and maneuverability within my body.

To submit the person, I once was to chronic pain, was one of the most difficult things that I have experienced in my life. After experiencing problems with my vision, intense headaches, pain in her neck, shoulders and hands, I knew that something serious was happening within her body. For three years I went from doctor to doctor trying to find answers and relieve my pain. Test after test, revealed nothing which sent me away with the same answer, my pain must be related to stress.

Finally, in 2003 I had my first surgery, after the pain became so severe that it impacted my life. The decision to have my first cervical spine surgery, and fuse vertebrae 6 and 7, seemed to be the answer I was looking for. It provided the relief that I was hoping for, and within 8-10 weeks I was back to work, and “back to normal”. I was hopeful again and picked up with the continuation of my life.

I knew the pain I had experienced, but I wasn’t prepared for the type of pain that was waiting for me many years later. Leading up to my second surgery in 2009 I began to have numbness and tingling in my fingers and toes, weakness in my arms, muscle spasms in my neck and isolated pain throughout the right side of my body from head to toe. Those symptoms were minimal in comparison to the shooting electric pain that led me back to the operating room.

What happened after my 2nd surgery where vertebrae 4 through 7 were fused, altered not only how I lived but what I wanted to do with my life. Wearing a neck brace, not being able to walk, not having the use of the right side of my body and depending on nurses for assistance to do the basic things just to take care of myself, ultimately were the catalyst change.

During my lowest moments, I didn’t want to live the way I was living, it was a bit of a depressing time, because all I could focus on was the pain and lack of independence. I knew that I didn’t want to depend on the medication for the rest of my life, I knew that I wanted to be as healthy as I could naturally, that I wanted take back control over my life and body, so I had to start with getting control over my mind.

I began to be thankful and grateful for having health insurance and wondered what someone would do who didn’t have that, or the support around them to get through. Starting my insurance agency, becoming a life health and wellness advocate, and forming a non-profit focused on helping kids who suffer from chronic pain was born out of my own health issues. We are stronger than we think, especially when we are going through tough times. I believe that the process I developed to take care of myself and help my recovery along with the network that I created around me was essential to getting me where I am today.