A Life That Helped Others Heal

Lois Bradley, founder of About Your Health, transitioned in February, leaving behind a loss that is deeply felt across Columbia. For many, Bradley was far more than a healthcare professional. She was a guide, a truth-teller, a steady presence and, for countless people, a turning point.

She was the kind of person people did not simply know. They experienced her. They sat across from her and felt seen. They listened to her speak and found themselves thinking differently. They walked into About Your Health looking for answers and often left with something even greater: hope, clarity and the sense that healing might still be possible.

Bradley came to nursing in the early 1970s, and by her own account, that was when her love for people truly blossomed. From there, she continued growing in both knowledge and calling. She earned her Bachelor of Science in nursing from the University of South Carolina (USC) in 1977, her Master of Nursing in midwifery from the Medical University of South Carolina in 1984, and her Master of Nursing as a family nurse practitioner from USC in 1998. Her education reflected something essential about her: Bradley never stopped learning. Not because she was chasing credentials, but because she cared too much to stop being curious.

She also carried the spirit of an adventurer. Bradley loved the outdoors, movement and discovery. She brought a lively, expansive energy into the world, one that made life feel larger and more interesting. That spirit shaped everything she built. About Your Health was never just a clinic. It was an extension of someone who was fully alive and deeply invested in helping others become well.

Her own health journey changed the course of her life. Bradley spoke openly about the season when she had pushed into excess and her health suffered. At a time when conventional medicine offered few answers, she turned toward natural therapies and discovered a new path forward. She came to believe deeply in the body’s capacity to heal when given the right support. Having lived, as she often said, on both sides of the fence, she built About Your Health from a place of both professional knowledge and personal experience.

When she opened her clinic in Columbia, it was not to reject conventional medicine, but to broaden the conversation. Bradley wanted to share what she had learned and help others find their own path to transformation. Long before many people in Columbia were familiar with them, she introduced therapies such as a mild hyperbaric chamber and thermography. She kept reading, kept exploring and kept bringing new understanding to the people she served.

Yet what made Bradley unforgettable was not only what she knew. It was how she loved people enough to tell them the truth. She had a way of being warm, steady and completely without judgment while still saying exactly what needed to be said. People even asked for it. More than one person walked into About Your Health saying, “I need a talking to by Lois.” They wanted her honesty because they trusted its source. It always came from love.

She had a rare gift for making complicated things plain. Whether she was explaining what the body was doing, why someone’s energy had disappeared, or the hard truth they had been avoiding for months, Bradley knew how to make it land. She helped people understand not only their health, but often themselves.

For more than 23 years, About Your Health became a place of refuge for people that had run out of other places to turn. They came weary, skeptical, frightened and exhausted. Bradley met them with wisdom, generosity and the kind of attention that made them feel truly seen. She brought rigor to conversations about thermography and natural therapies, and just as much care to conversations about grief, diet, fatigue and the quiet burdens people carried without words. In many cases, she offered more than guidance. She offered reassurance, perspective and the belief that healing was still within reach.

Following Bradley’s transition, About Your Health has closed. But the legacy she leaves behind remains powerful and alive in the lives she touched, the truths she shared and the hope she gave so freely. She was difficult to categorize because she embodied so much. She was a nurse, a midwife, a practitioner, an adventurer, a truth-teller, an animal lover and a pioneer. She was also the friend who told what no one else would and made people grateful she did.

And yet, what Bradley believed in does not end here. She would want people to remember that the knowledge is still out there, that the body still longs toward healing, and that good health is still possible.

There’s nothing but good health out there for us.