Healing In Motion Physical Therapy
About Me
I was born in Moscow, Russia during the gloomy times of Cold War. Ever since I was a little girl, I believed I could make someone better just by placing my hands on them. I remember giving massages to all my family members and friends and asking "Is it better?" hoping that I took away their pain.
We moved to the United States in the early 90s and I went on to pursue an undergraduate degree in Marketing and International Business from the University of Colorado in Boulder. I had no idea who I wanted to be when I grew up, and at that time I was unfamiliar with the abundance of choices that students had in this country. Besides, my family was pushing me to graduate with something...
However, as soon as I graduated, I realized that office work was not for me and I became a full time aerobics instructor and a personal trainer teaching classes all over Boulder. It seemed like a better fit for my personality.
Fast forward several years to my early twenties. I hurt my knee snowboarding and had to have surgery followed by physical therapy (PT). I really enjoyed PT and was wondering if this indeed was something that I could be good at. After all, I was a personal trainer and loved the way that movement and exercise could transform someone’s life.
One day in a yoga class, during savasana (the final relaxation pose at the end of the class) I heard a voice. It must have been coming from inside of my head because it very clearly stated: “I want to heal peopleâ€. At that moment childhood memories of trying to heal all my family members flashed before my eyes and at that moment I knew I was going to go back to school to become a physical therapist.
I graduated from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in 2010 and continued my education with many courses in traditional and non-traditional body work techniques and Pilates.
Recently I have been doing a lot of self-reflection and kept asking myself what drove me back to school and is driving me now every single day.
What got me through the grueling 3 years of PT school and got me through the anatomy lab with terrible ventilation?
What is the voice that wakes me up in the middle of the night and tells me the best approach to try with a patient?
What got me through the certification in dry needling where I had to overcome my needle phobia and had to be needled in every single muscle in my body?
What drove me to quit my job at an outpatient physical therapy clinic and leave a steady paycheck so I could plunge myself into the unknown by starting my own physical therapy clinic?
The answer is - I love helping people live the lives they want. I love seeing my patient playing golf after 2 hip replacements. I love knowing that a 16 year old girl who suffered a terrible concussion and couldn’t sleep for a whole year, was able to sleep through the night and finish out her year in school. I love knowing that my patient was able to ski after suffering for a year with terrible back and neck pain. I see these transformations daily and it feels wonderful to know that I was able to assist in body’s natural process of healing.
Our bodies are perfectly designed to be resilient and have this amazing capacity to heal injuries. Sometimes this process gets stuck and needs a push in the right direction. This is the reason why I love physical therapy. It is non-invasive process that helps the natural healing process along and gets you back on track. As a result you get your life back without pain medications, injections or surgery.
Needless to say, I had to leave the traditional PT setting. Unfortunately traditional medical model is focused on the wrong thing which is insurance. It drove me crazy when I had to stop therapy on a patient because they maxed out their insurance benefits. I couldn't understand why my boss was concerned when I kept working with my patients longer than what the doctor ordered even though they needed more treatment. I felt frustrated when some guy without any medical education who worked for an insurance company in Cleveland was dictating what I should be doing with my patient. It felt wrong.
While working in a traditional PT setting I felt overworked and burnt out. The fire that drove me to this profession was simply on low. I saw too many patients (up to 20 a day) and I simply could not deliver the quality of care that I knew they deserved. The joy of helping someone transform their life was taken over by fatigue and needless paperwork. I was simply tired.
Then I realized that I had to start my own thing. I had to create a place where physical therapy was practiced for the right reasons under the right conditions. So I opened the doors of Healing in Motion Physical Therapy and started taking care of my patients the way that I wanted to.
The fire is back on full blast. There is no way of turning it off or putting it out. Now I am able to give you the care that you deserve. And the best thing is that every day when I wake up I am excited to go to work.
