Smithtown Mom Facing Illness Recovers, Opens Acupuncture Practice

STONY BROOK, NY — In summer 2017, Jennifer Muilenburg was told she was possibly facing a terminal illness. In fall 2019, she became the proud owner of a health and wellness business.

Muilenburg, 41, of Smithtown opened Just Enjoy Life! Acupuncture and Wellness Center, a fitting name for someone who battled benign metastasizing leiomyoma (BML) in September. Her business can be found at 2500 Route 347, Unit 6D, Stony Brook.

Her practice blends eastern and western medicine techniques, as it offers acupuncture, massage therapy, cupping and moxibustion, the burning of moxa on or near a person's skin as a counter-irritant. Yoga will be offered in the near future, as well. Muilenburg said she can help with both physical and emotional pain, as she sees veterans from the local VA, women seeking treatment for health and reproduction issues, and people experiencing migraines, allergies, sleep issues and respiratory issues.

Before she fell ill, Muilenburg was training in acupuncture, though she managed to finish her degree once she recovered. Now, she uses what she learned from her own fight and applies it to her practice, specifically the role of being the patient rather than provider.

"I now understand both sides very well," she told Patch. "I was able to take from what I learned in my own treatments and how I can apply that to my process now."

During her health scare, Muilenburg had fibroids in her lungs; while they're still there, she said they're so minuscule that they no longer cause any problems.

"In [the doctor's] words, 'these are not lungs that are seen in people walking around,' usually they are hospitalized and very sick and even possibly on a ventilator," she told Patch in a 2017 story.

Muilenburg, a mother of three children who are 7, 5 and 4, was scared that her son, who hadn't even turned 2 at the time, would not remember his mother.

With her doctors and the people of Smithtown rallying behind her, Muilenburg eventually defeated her condition that was once considered on the cusp of being considered terminal. At a February visit to the transplant center, she was told she is fully recovered.

"At this point, they’re considering me completely well and no longer needing lung transplants or anything I had needed before," she said. "To be where I am today is nothing short of a miracle, really. Even when I go to see my doctor in Manhattan, she introduces me to her residents as ‘This is my miracle patient.’"

Throughout her process, Muilenburg said she did everything her western doctors told her to do: take medication and have multiple surgeries. While she wasn't any worse, she wasn't any better, she said. She began seeing an acupuncturist three times a week for intensive therapy. Muilenburg says within three months, she was off of oxygen completely, and within six, she was pretty much back to fully functioning. That's why she relies on both western and eastern techniques at her practice.

If you're interested in making an appointment, you can reach Muilenburg at her office at 631-675-1895. You may even get to hear more about her unique success story.

This story drew on old reporting by Patch staffer Priscila Korb.

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Photos courtesy Jennifer Muilenburg