NOCATEE, Fla. — One day, Cari Merrell is living her life normally, running her business and working out while raising four kids daily.
The next she’s at Mayo Clinic going through what she calls the hardest part of her life: chemotherapy.
“We found my cancer at stage 3B, if I hadn't done that test, and I had no symptoms,” Merrell said.
The former professional ballerina never had any family history or symptoms of ovarian cancer.
It wasn’t until she started using Function Health, that helps patients get focused on living a healthy lifestyle, that she even thought about getting a series of tests that typically aren’t apart of the annual check up.
“Through my healthcare process, they've done all my genetic marker testing, and I have absolutely zero cancer markers that they identified. That’s 77 tested. I don't carry any hereditary chromosome cancer markers,“ Merrell explained.
Merrell claims Function Health save her life and that if she did not get tested back in December of 2023, she would not know about her cancer diagnosis. Possibly never getting treatment if it was until it was too late.
“The whole idea of pursuing wellness rather than waiting until there’s a problem and then there’s a problem and then pursuing treatment. So I ultimately decided on pursuing treatment but it was a result of pursuing wellness just by getting baseline testing,” she mentioned.
And Merrell's test results isn't the only success story.
Founder of Function Health, Dr. Mark Hyman, explains how most patients have potential health risks that can easily slip under the radar.
“I was taught no, don't test, you know, just just take a deep history, and then only use test to confirm your diagnosis, and not to screen and not to look preventatively. And we're in a reactive healthcare system,” he said.
Merrell says she was lucky enough to ring the remission bell and is now urging everyone to take a cancer preventative test the next time they go to the doctor. Adding it could save your life just like it did hers.
Sign up for Function Health with using the code FIRSTCOAST100, the first 100 people will bypass the waitlist.