Why Cade Exists
A personal story of survival, healing, and building something that matters.
December 3rd. I'll never forget that day.
I was walking through Macy's, searching for Christmas gifts for my daughter and son. The store was alive — perfume drifting through the air, holiday music playing overhead, shoppers rushing past with bags in hand. But all I could feel was a pounding headache that wouldn't stop.
I'm a mother of two. I was 45, exhausted from the semester ending for my kids, buried under the stress of an upcoming marketing campaign, and my body was screaming at me to slow down. But mothers don't slow down in December. We push through.
Two weeks earlier, my doctor had looked at my bloodwork and said: "This is normal for your age. Let's get you on HRT and you'll feel better in no time."
That evening I made myself a hot cinnamon tea — something I drank every night, something I thought was healthy.
So I took two Advil and went to sleep. Hours later, I woke up worse — far worse. My daughter was crying, sick too. Her fever wouldn't break. Off to the ER we went.
They tested us both. Yes, it was the flu. But the nurse kept asking questions. "The headache you're describing... that's not a flu headache." She insisted on a CAT scan.
Within ten minutes, the nurse was back. "We're moving you to the ICU. We found bleeding in the center of your brain."
After a week in the hospital and countless tests, they found the answer. I had cavernous malformations — and the combination of high-dose HRT, multiple doses of Advil, and my nightly hot cinnamon tea had caused my blood vessels to bleed inside my brain. Each one thins the blood. Together, they were catastrophic.
No doctor warned me. No pharmacist flagged it. No warning label on the Advil bottle mentions cinnamon tea. No one could have predicted that this specific combination — prescribed medication, an over-the-counter painkiller, and a "healthy" evening tea — would nearly kill me.
The flu — the thing that felt like the worst timing in the world — is probably what saved my life. Without it, I never would have gone to that ER.
The rules for recovery were terrifying in their simplicity. No Advil. For six weeks: no garlic, no cinnamon, no ginger tea, no chocolate. Things I thought were healthy could trigger another bleed. Then came peptide therapy for healing — but after what I'd been through, I needed to be absolutely certain everything was safe.
So I researched. I journaled. I tracked every single thing I consumed. I cross-referenced interactions. I logged how I felt every day. It was exhausting. It was overwhelming. And it was working.
I built Cade because I lived the problem.
It's the app I desperately needed on December 3rd. It's the guardian I wish had been in my pocket when I reached for that bottle of Advil without knowing it could cause bleeding in my brain. It's the tool that checks what your doctor doesn't track, what your pharmacist can't see, and what no warning label covers: the full picture of everything you consume, together.
I'm fully healed now. And I'm grateful every single day. Grateful to God — for carrying me through the darkest moments and giving me a second chance. Grateful to my family, my kids, my friends. And grateful that technology now exists to put this kind of information into the hands of people who need it — the way I needed it that day.
Cade exists because no one should have to nearly lose everything to learn that what they're consuming matters. It should be easier. And now it is.
