We were lucky to catch up with Nicole Fowler recently and have shared our conversation below.

Nicole , appreciate you joining us today. Is there a heartwarming story from your career that you look back on?

This is not an easy story to talk about, I am reminded of it every day. About one year ago I received a phone call from a physical therapy colleague of mine that knows my background well. He told me that a friend’s daughter, 13, had been diagnosed with brain cancer. She had just gone through extensive surgery and was left paralyzed with inability to walk, talk, swallow and experiencing pain. She went from a healthy normal teenager to her current state instantaneously. I have a background in home health, spinal cord/brain injury patients, and am trained in myofascial massage and dry needling techniques. It was almost as if I had been prepared for this moment my whole career and my friend felt being a mom of four that I would be a strong force for the little girl and her mom. I was used to helping people at the end of their lives, but this would be one of the harder challenges as she was the same age as my own children. I summoned all the faith I have and knew I had to be strong for Ali and her mother as they moved forward with the uncertainties and harsh challenges. I began by laying out a clear plan of goals for her: to be able to move around the house, perform basic activities, gain back some independence and give her a sense of security and confidence, and ultimately reduce some of her pain.

She had a feeding tube in and had trouble swallowing and lost the ability to speak. Needless to say she was terrified. I began by gaining her trust and repairing the sense of hope that we could achieve those goals. We worked on her physical abilities as well as her mind and spirit. She loved to bake and be with her friends. The holiday season was near and I organized people in my neighborhood to donate gifts for her to enjoy knowing the burdens that she and her family had upon them. My daughter wanted to help me bring them over and give them to her. During our visit, her mother asked Julia what she wanted for Christmas. She suprisingly said she wanted a cat, which was the first time I had heard of this wish. The mother immediately looked at me and said I have the perfect cat for you! She was so excited and told me that her daughter’s friend had given her a kitten when she became ill but the kitty was a bit too playful and they couldn’t keep it. They had been looking for a home for this sweet kitten for a while. We adopted the kitten, Annie, and brought her home to our house. After Christmas, the girl was accepted into a research treatment study that would hopefully help her condition. She left for San Francisco with her parents and I tried to get up there a few times to help out but unfortunately being a single mom of four kids was a challenge. After a few weeks, she returned to Austin to her home. She deteriorated quickly and before I could get to see her, she passed away with her family and doctor at her side.

Going to her funeral was one of the hardest days of my life. She was a shining light full of life. Her spirit lives on with everyone she touched and especially in the sweet Annie that she gave me and my kids. Annie is a special cat, she is an amazing “therapy cat”. My patients and clients that come to my home for treatment get to enjoy this amazing gentle animal. Annie will want to come in and sit with my patients and clients while I try to ease their aches and pains. She reminds us everyday of the light that this little girl shined on this world and how precious our health is in our lives. I thank God everyday that he brought this sweet angel girl, her parents and the “angel Annie” the cat into my family’s life.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up participating in as many sports I could get myself into. I gravitated quickly to gymnastics as a young age and continued with it until my teenage years. In addition, I played soccer, tennis, horseback riding swam on the summer swim team, and ran track and became a cheerleader in high school. Along the way, I would find myself with minor set backs from sprains/strains/pains. It was one of the more frustrating and sad moments as an athlete because you had to sit on the sidelines and not participate with the team or in the sport. Luckily I never had a major injury and always found myself doing the little things to improve my conditions and get me back out in the game as fast as possible. Fast forward to college, I was ultra focused on becoming a doctor or physical therapist so that I could help others overcome their ailments. I did a lot of volunteer hours in hospitals and medical settings and decided to go the physical therapy route. After I graduated, I began working in the field and gained experience with spinal cord/brain injury patients, post operative patients, inpatient and outpatient settings. There’s truly one common goal with most of the patients, that is, to get back to what they enjoy doing in life and reduce/eliminate pain. Sounds simple, but with the challenges of the medical profession and insurance limitations, it’s not a quick and easy task anymore. I started thinking, why would one wait until the little pains became big pain/problems if you could prevent them. As a physical therapist, you had to wait until someone had a diagnosis and injury to receive your services. Well, that’s just too late. So I decided to go massage school and get my license to help those who had the aches and pains but not necessarily an injury yet. Then, after having 4 csections and lost a lot of core strength, I added the pilates certification behind my name. It was truly the only exercise that got me back the strength I needed to continue with my activities and daily life.

I provided physical therapy services including dry needling, manual techniques, and postural restoration to name a few to help those with existing injuries. In addition, I offer massage, maintenance and preventive services to those that just want to keep going and prevent any injuries from popping up as they work and play. I teach pilates on the reformer and mat to improve strength, lengthening of the muscles, coordination, posture, and body awareness. The biggest thing that sets me apart from other therapists is that I spend one on one time with each patient/client and find out what their goal is coming into the treatment, make that my goal and work together to achieve it. Sitting on the sidelines in life is not a fun place to be, so getting each person back into their game in life is my goal for each person. I am proud of my work and overcoming many hurdles over the years as a business owner. I am a single mom of four kiddos and juggle them with my work and all of their activities. My divorce, failure in attempt to create a bigger business with a few other people, and quarantine all hit within a year and half of each other and it was a big valley I sat in for a while. I was unemployed and had to homeschool my kids and not work for over a year and that was probably my biggest challenge. However, I came back with more motivation and focus on making my services bigger and better than they were before. Everyone had to sit on the sideline with covid restrictions. The mental and physical impact on people was huge, some for the worse others for the better. Either way, we all experienced it. I am here to help anyone that has experienced set backs, physical and mental, and get them back into their game better than they were before.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

There are LOTS of lessons that I had to unlearn but the biggest one is never put limitations on dreams based on what others tell you. So many times I have listened to others say you should do this and you shouldn’t do that. And I did just what they said. I look back and man, I denied myself so many opportunities to stay in the “safe zone”, never taking that chance. I stayed in a marriage for too long, worked in jobs that were not satisfying to just get that pay check, not doing things because I am a parent. No more denying my dreams and goals. If you want it, work hard for it, and never give up.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I moved around a lot growing up as a kid and had to restart my life in each place. That was the beginning of my resilience. In my professional life, I touched on this in one of the previous questions but will go into detail here. I spent over a year to create program for a company that was to go nationwide. To keep it simple, I developed a program that helps one prepare their bodies for something, prevent injury and maintain their strength and length of the muscles that allow them to keep going with maximal potential performance. My dream program. I completed it, implemented it, trained others, and was on the way to seeing it succeed, until the owners of the company changed their tune, had their differences, changed up the business structure and turned south. I walked away from it all with a broken heart. It crushed me inside. But, no rest for the weary, I returned to my own business while working in the home health industry to pay the bills. Sidenote, this was all during my divorce as well, so it was pretty dark time for me. Then, covid. I literally couldn’t do anything to support my family. I went on unemployment and sat at home for a year with my 4 children wondering what was going to happen next. Once everything opened back up, I put my big girl pants back on and got back out there. I have been working nonstop since then to recover from all of the setbacks. There is one thing about myself that I have learned over the years, I will find a way to overcome challenges, there may be sweat and tears but I will get there. Never give up.

Contact Info:

• Website: nicolefrostbodyworks.com
• Instagram: frostbodywrx