Stay empowered & stay informed.

Hello, my name is Shannon Coates, a patient advocate, founder of Patient Connect, caregiver, mother of four, competitive athlete, and someone who has spent most of her life in a body that doesn’t always cooperate.

 

I’m also a rare patient.

 

Autoimmune disease is often invisible. From the outside, I look healthy, but the reality is very different. There were years when my body felt decades older than it should have, where pain wasn’t occasional, it was constant. This work didn’t start as a business. It started as a necessity, a passion, and a deep calling to help others navigate what I had to figure out on my own.

 

My life changed in 1994, when I was 14 years old and my single mother in Canada was diagnosed with breast cancer. Around that same time, I began experiencing severe chronic pain, later understood to be autoimmune arthritis, long before I had the language, support, or validation to understand what was happening in my body. I know what it feels like to search for answers and come up empty. To be dismissed. To be told, “it’s just growing pains” or handed prescriptions that don’t address the root cause. To sit in rooms where you’re expected to trust the process, while feeling like no one is truly listening. For years, I was offered solutions that managed symptoms, but I wanted more than that, I wanted to heal.

 

In 2019, I made the decision to take my health and my life, into my own hands. I stopped drinking, invested in a life coach, and committed to rebuilding myself from the inside out. That journey wasn’t easy, but it was transformative. It taught me that true healing is not one-dimensional. Mental health and physical health are deeply connected. Real change requires a combined approach, blending Western medicine, Eastern practices, holistic healing, and deep inner work. I did the work. The uncomfortable work, the shadow work and that changed everything.

 

I’ve always been wired for challenge. As an athlete, I’ve spent decades pushing my limits, playing competitive sports, soccer, and field hockey as a goalie, to founding my high school’s first girls’ rugby team and as the captain leading a first-year team to place second in provincials, and later training in mixed martial arts, earning my blue belt in Jiu Jitsu. Today, I serve as an ambassador for Girls in Gi, supporting the next generation of women in the sport. Athletes don’t train alone, we invest in coaching, refine our strategy, and commit to growth. I realized my health, my mindset, and my life deserved that same level of intention.

 

Then came 2022, my breaking point and my breakthrough. A near-fatal car accident. A divorce after 14 years. And a move into a toxic mold environment that intensified every underlying condition in my body and found new ones. It forced me to go deeper, because when you live in pain, you don’t casually look for solutions, you aggressively hunt for them. I’ve endured pain that rivals childbirth during autoimmune and frozen shoulder flares. I’ve spent years researching, investing, and experimenting, refusing to accept that suffering was the only option. I stopped living reactively, I took the driver’s seat and that’s the work I do now.

 

I help people reconnect to their body, take ownership of their healing, and build a life that supports their health; mentally, physically, and emotionally. Because if your body is the vehicle for your soul, you must treat it like one. You can’t run on empty, ignore maintenance, and expect peak performance. Fuel matters. Environment matters. Mindset matters.

 

After losing my father to a rare, aggressive form of lung cancer (SCLC) and witnessing my family navigate fear, confusion, and misinformation, I saw just how broken the system can be. People are left overwhelmed, vulnerable, and unsure who to trust. I built my work and my coaching, so they don’t have to do it alone.

 

My brain works differently. I have ADHD and sit on the spectrum, which allows me to see patterns, gaps, and solutions others often miss. I don’t just follow systems, I question them, challenge them, and rebuild them. My path hasn’t been linear. I’ve faced health challenges, personal loss, and moments where my value wasn’t recognized. But those experiences didn’t break me, they refined me. Today, my work sits at the intersection of lived experience and strategy.

 

I don’t just coach from theory, I coach from experience. If you’re ready to stop surviving and start taking control of your health, your mindset, and your life, I’m here to help you step fully into the driver’s seat.

 

Book a complimentary 15-minute consultation to see if I’m the right coach fit to change your life, I'm only accepting limited clients. Email me: scoates@patientstudyconnect.com.