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Irish-French-American Sasha Piton has travelled widely outside the US but has recently settled in Dublin. In her new series for The Journal, she shares the insights of a new arrival on a country she’s trying to call home.

NOT MANY PEOPLE can say that they had a doctor’s note for moving to Ireland, but I did. My remote job in the States was one more piece of the puzzle that made moving to Ireland completely possible!

Not only did I have a desire to move here, but I had a job where I thought I could work from anywhere. But when I asked, my manager wanted to check with the executives so he was curious if I had any kind of real reason.

My doctor wrote me a note explaining that, for my health, moving to Europe would be good for me.

That note was the easy part.

Getting to a place where a doctor could write it? That took four years and $20,000. So here’s how I spent so much time and money on my health to get well enough to move to Dublin, and it started on a trip to Zambia.

I went to Zambia for a cultural exchange in 2019. On the last day, I accidentally had pork that was undercooked and got sick… for the entire 42-hour journey back to the States. Only six months after that trip, I went to Nepal for another cultural experience and accidentally drank hose water, but it was served to me in a glass so I didn’t quite realise. I saw doctors after both trips, they ran bloodwork and it came back normal. So they just shrugged it off and said it was just something that happens while travelling.

For years, my stomach wasn’t the same. I went to four different doctors who said I was fine, but I continuously felt worse. It started with gastrointestinal issues and then fatigue and then brain fog and then I developed insomnia and my whole approach to life was changing. I couldn’t function like my former self and even though I exercised and ate well I continued to put on weight.

The doctors kept telling me it was BECAUSE of my weight that these things were happening. And maybe I should give up gluten. I learned the hard way that the system fails healthy people who get sick slowly. I used my insurance to go to these doctors and ask for help. I paid $3,000 out of pocket for a colonoscopy because my insurance wouldn’t cover it as I was only 33 at the time.

There were no answers so I just accepted that sleeping 12 hours a day with naps and being in pain constantly was my new life.

In early 2023, a friend recommended a functional medicine MD and after one phone call I knew she could help. She ran tests on everything: stool, urine, saliva, soooo many blood panels, and even a DNA test. Those four years led me to a fifth doctor who finally believed me to find out that all the hormones in my body were shut down. Not just estrogen and progesterone, but the hormones in my brain, too.

Foreign bacteria took over my microbiome and were preventing me from absorbing nutrients. My body put on weight to protect my organs from that bacteria, but essentially I was malnourished and metabolically, nothing was working inside. Looks like I brought back the wrong kind of souvenirs from my trips, and I KNEW it. My first four doctors didn’t look at the bigger picture or see that my “ranges” in my bloodwork were all over the place each visit. So while still within a bell curve, it was not normal for me. It was the fifth doctor who put the pattern together and said “we need more information” so she ran a lot more tests.

What’s happening in the US and maybe everywhere is you have to almost have a medical degree to go to the doctor’s to get help. It’s very rare that a doctor will dig deep and find the cause of multiple symptoms instead of just medicating each individual symptom. Unless you know exactly what tests to ask for, it’s very hard to get a big picture of what’s happening inside your body.

I met my doctor in 2023 and while it took a year and $20,000 of testing and supplements, I felt like an entire entirely new person. My joints stopped aching. My brain turned back on. I felt hunger cues and could crave food again. My periods were regular. I could fall asleep normally and didn’t need a four-hour nap in the middle of the day. I could exercise without pain.

Each passing day brought something back to me that I had lost slowly over time. With all my faculties back I could dream again. And I don’t mean sleepy time dreams, but LIFE dreams! I got my zest for life back and I wanted to live it to the fullest.

I planned a girls’ trip to Ireland for nine months and we came in April of 2025. In each place visited, I kept thinking “Ah! I could live here!”

Our first stop on the Ring of Kerry, the morning was crisp, but the sun was out. There was a little bit of fog resting in the air but it was also shining in the sunlight. It was magical and breathtaking to see the green hills, the tall grass, the shimmer of the water in the air reflecting on the sun and 12 of us laughing in awe of this place.

We landed in Pig’s Lane in Killarney where live music played and we felt welcomed with open arms. I had their “church of the sloes” drink and it’s forever changed me. A lychée gin mixture shaken with egg whites is a flavour profile I’m still chasing.

We went to Galway and we danced in the streets while trad music filtered out from a pub. We had the best pizza and beer and people let us borrow a chair from their table and we said “sláinte” when we toasted to our trip. Every day I sang Ed Sheeran’s Galway Girl so when I saw a “Galway Girl” necklace in Claddagh and Irish, I knew I had to get it to commemorate not only this trip but myself coming back to life.

We took the train to Dublin and we all joked that it felt like Harry Potter but quickly learned who could sit backwards without getting car sick. It was me. And I watched the countryside roll by feeling nothing but gratitude.

We were in Dublin for our last day, some girls going to learn about fairies and some going to learn about the Book of Kells. I remember sitting in Copper + Straw with my sister and looking over the Liffey. I felt better than I ever had. I let the thought sink in further: I could live here. We all gathered for our farewell dinner, closer as friends, toasting to this trip that changed us for the better.

I went home, determined. Within two months I had a note from my doctor to give to my boss, hoping the executives would say yes. Spoiler alert: they didn’t say yes. And they laid me off five months later. BUT I still came! And that’s why I sold my house. I didn’t want to wait for a new job and start that process over again to get here. I lost my job and decided instead of being sad, I’d say, “It’s a new adventure.”

I still sit in that Copper + Straw every now and again and remember what it felt like to think, “I can do this!” but this time I’m here, doing it.

Many people want to complain about Dublin, the housing, yes, is crazy, and the traffic can be a lot but it brought me a dream realised.

I have no idea how long I’ll be here. Dublin is forever a part of my story now, and I love this city for that reason alone. It helped bring me back to life and now I’m living life to the fullest.

So thank you for having minerals in your soil and therefore in your food. Thank you for having high-quality food with less chemicals and preservatives. Thank you for having clean air and mineral water that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Thank you for public transportation and for being a walkable city. I love you, Dublin!

Sasha will be back with more insights into her adopted home and city next week.

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