Brian McHale, MS, OTR/L
Sometimes the path is a winding road before you reach home.
It may seem simple now, but it was a journey to get where we are today.
Some people have their life figured out at age 18, but I was not one of them. I started off in pharmacy school and ended up spending two years at a big university trying my best to chip away at a degree that I wasn’t sure I was passionate about. At the time, I knew I wanted to help people and becoming a pharmacist seemed like a noble way to do that.
However, it wasn’t for me and I had to go back to the drawing board.
At the end of the spring semester, I went back home to my family in Northeast Pennsylvania to regroup and reroute my plans. I had a strong interest in healthcare and really wanted to help make a difference in the lives of other people. I found my way to Utica, New York and earned a degree in Occupational Therapy and my future wife along the way.
My life was forever changed and so was how I cared for my patients.
The summer after graduation, my mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. I was fresh out of school and ready to start my career but I opted to stay home for a while and provide support for my mom through her treatments. That life altering experience of caring for my mom gave me great empathy for people that lose their health.
Then, I began the next chapter of my story.
After my mom’s first round of cancer was in remission, I moved to New Jersey and started my career working with adults at an inpatient rehabilitation center. I really liked that job; it was challenging physically and mentally and left me feeling like I was really making a difference in my patients’ lives. However, I sustained an injury there that disabled me for a long time. I went through extensive surgeries and medical treatments but wasn’t getting better. I attended 90 sessions of physical therapy, was in a lot of pain and still couldn’t walk without crutches. Nine months into my recovery, I was referred to a chiropractor specializing in holistic health. After one treatment from him, I was walking out of the office without my crutches. I regained motor control of my foot and restored my ability to drive. I followed his protocol of nutritional supplementation and noticed an immediate decrease in pain and other symptoms. I participated in Neuro Emotional therapy to address the emotions related to my injury that were limiting my healing. The injury happened to my foot, but the effects of that injury impacted my entire body. It wasn’t until someone started looking at my entire body that I truly started to heal.
My healing journey coincides with a season of life where I was the bonus parent of a young boy with special needs. You can imagine a lot of learning and re-learning was being done in these years where I was healing myself and choosing holistic care for my foster child too. It was different from what I had previously known to be true about healthcare, but I was experiencing improvements first hand and I was open to try. We sought out some of the top practitioners in our area -and beyond- and the experience changed the lives of our entire family. This is where my mindset started to shift and I became more conscious of looking at the whole picture and providing full body treatments for my own patients. I strongly believe that God allowed me to go through this season of prolonged injury, pain, loss of function and feeling hopeless so that I could better relate to my patients and show them that healing can and will happen with the right conditions. From then on, I have done my best to ensure that no stone goes unturned in my therapy sessions in order for my patients to experience true healing and wellness.
In 2021, my mom lost her 18 year battle with cancer. The last several years of my mother’s life and struggles with cancer made me start to question everything. I had already been pretty interested in health and wellness, but her illness ignited a deeper sense of curiosity in me about root causes of illnesses and other conditions. I still continue to seek out more knowledge and training about the effects of environment, genetics, toxins, nutrition, etc. on the health of humans and how to facilitate healing and promote wellness. I have incorporated this into my practice at Right Starts and have seen some really amazing and encouraging improvements in my patients. I know my mom was proud of Right Starts and loved many of the children and families she met here. So I can only imagine that she would be proud of the ways we have grown to incorporate more modalities to healing. It is a privilege to get to do what I love every day and honor my mom’s legacy while doing it.
