<aside> 💡
(Spec Piece — River of Qi, Mei Mendel & testimonials are fictional. Strategic note: For a visitor who's already warmed up on the Home page and wants to know "can I trust this person with my body" — leads with vulnerability and lived experience before credentials, so the credentials land as proof rather than a pitch. Builds credibility, trust,authority and patient rapport.)
</aside>
My own past, stubborn health challenges started me on the path that led me here, to opening my practice, River of Qi, where I help clients get to the root of chronic health and digestive issues, using Acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, Medical QiGong, and Taoist practice.
Before I fell in love with Chinese Medicine, I was climbing the corporate ladder. Fifteen years of deadlines, quarterly targets, the whole relentless dance. I was so wrapped up in the hustle of it all that I didn't notice how far I'd drifted from myself along the way. I'd lost touch with my body, until my body stopped whispering and started yelling.
For decades I struggled with chronic digestive issues and low energy that no amount of sleep or dieting fixed. I dragged myself through every day feeling heavy and foggy, bloated and constipated, or cramping with diarrhea. For years, I lived with the anxiety of always needing to know where the nearest bathroom was, or when and what to eat — or not to eat. I didn’t even know how depressed I was. Like most, I ran the gamut looking for answers and relief: appointment after appointment, every standard test and every standard fix. Some of it helped a little, for a while, but none of it got anywhere close to the root.
This changed when a friend introduced me to Traditional Chinese Medicine. It was genuinely the first approach that actually made sense of what my body had been trying to tell me all these years. Finally, I felt heard and seen, and I was learning solutions that actually worked.
Twenty-five years ago, I traded the corporate world for a Doctorate in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and I've never once looked back.
I trained at the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon, earning my Doctorate in Acupuncture with a Chinese Herbal Medicine Specialization. From there, I spent a full year interning at the Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine in China, immersed in Acupuncture and herbalism.
It was also in China that I found what has become my lifelong passion: I was privileged to be invited to study an ancient lineage of Medical QiGong under Master Feng, based on the principles of Classic Chinese Medicine. That experience had a profound effect on how I understand the body, and it's what led me to blend ancient Medical QiGong practice with a Western understanding of fascia and sports medicine, along with a somatic, trauma-informed approach to healing both body and emotions.
In the 25 years since, I've had the privilege of walking this same road alongside hundreds of clients.
Healing isn't something handed to you, wrapped up and finished. It's learning to understand your own body again, and trusting it enough to actually listen when it speaks.
More than anything, I want to teach real hands-on skills, not just treat your body. My hope is that you leave our meetings understanding your own body a little better than when you arrived, carrying practical tools you'll actually use long after a session ends, not a generic protocol handed to everyone who walks through my door.
Emotional and physical health are interconnected. In my practice, I address both, because getting to the root of an imbalance means treating the whole picture, not just its surface symptoms. Stuck emotion shows up in the body. Physical imbalance affects the mind. We need to treat all, Body-Mind-Spirit, or we’re only ever solving one part of the problem.