Maria grew up in Stone Mtn., GA. She learned to love medicine because of her father, who was a physician, and her mother a nurse. She took nursing courses in college and worked in medical offices for many years, due to her love of medicine and the desire to help others. Even so, Maria always had a strong desire to write; children's books, novels, and articles that could help people.
It was after Maria had children that she really began to foster her writing. And it wasn't until she had gone through two brain surgeries that she wrote her first published piece. It was her memoir; "It's all in Your Head," that was published first. "It's all in Your Head" is a book that tells of her experience with a rare brain cyst and what she went through with doctors who wouldn't listen, or believe her.
Today, Maria is an advocate for playing an active role in your own medical care. She is an advocate for those with brain cysts and Chiari Malformations; helping others by telling her story, what she went through, and by giving advice that she learned along the way with her rown experience.