HOUSTON – For months, Houston mother Lilly Rodriguez knew something wasn’t right. She was in constant pain, exhausted, and scared - yet every time she went to the ER or saw a doctor, she was told the same thing: everything looks fine.
“I did go to the ER a couple of times,” Rodriguez remembers. “They would do blood work and send me home and say that everything was fine. Obviously, I wasn’t fine.”
As her pain grew worse, so did her fear. “I knew something was wrong,” she said. “My abdominal pain was severe. I had a lot of bleeding, and I mentioned it to the doctor - she just kept sending me home.”
Finally, Rodriguez’s sisters took matters into their own hands, making call after call to find someone who would see her. That’s when they found CLS Health, a physician-owned medical group built on collaboration and compassion. The clinic told her to come in the next morning.
When One Doctor Truly Listens
At CLS Health, Rodriguez met Dr. Harmouche, who immediately recognized the urgency of her condition.
“He was so caring, so loving,” she said. “He looked at me with concern - the way a father looks at his child - and said, ‘We need to take you downstairs now.’ He didn’t hesitate. The next day, he did surgery.”
That surgery revealed the truth: stage four uterine cancer.
“The first thing that comes to your mind when you hear those words is, ‘I’m going to die,’” Rodriguez said. “But Dr. Harmouche was amazing. Now my sisters see him, too. My whole family comes to CLS Health.”
Collaboration That Saves Time - and Lives
For Dr. Husam Issa, an immunologist and co-founder of CLS Health, that kind of patient outcome is exactly why the practice exists.
“When you see the patients’ satisfaction and how happy they are, that’s what makes you happy,” Dr. Issa said. “You achieved what you wanted.”
Dr. Issa describes a place where physicians aren’t siloed but share their expertise down the hall.
“I could just with a phone call or walk to one of my colleagues and ask a question. The patient can be taken care of right away, under one roof,” he said. “That’s how Lilly’s life was saved.”
Because CLS Health is physician-owned, doctors have the freedom to prioritize patients - not profit. “Every physician’s practice is his practice,” Issa said. “It’s not somebody telling me what to do. When doctors are given autonomy, they excel.”
‘I’m Forever Grateful’
Rodriguez’s treatment wasn’t easy. Over the next year and a half, she endured 13 rounds of chemotherapy and 28 rounds of radiation. She lost 60 pounds and all her hair, but never her faith.
“I thank God every day that I get up and take my daughter to school,” she said. “To see the blue sky, the clouds, the trees - God, you let me keep seeing this. I’m forever grateful, and I thank my medical team for not giving up on me.”
Her family became her anchor. “My parents took me into their home,” she said. “My sisters stopped their lives to take care of me. Family is everything.”
Today, Rodriguez is cancer-free - and every member of her family now sees doctors within the CLS Health network. “It’s like a family,” she said. “You don’t have to wait weeks for another appointment or go somewhere else for blood work. Everything’s together in one place.”
Healthcare How It Should Be
For CLS Health CEO Megan Owen, that’s exactly the point.
“It’s great to see that because of the community of physicians we’ve built, those doctors can work together for one woman - and really save her life,” Owen said. “It’s healthcare how it should be.”
From one mother’s desperate search for answers to a team of doctors who listened, CLS Health continues to prove that when care comes from the heart, healing follows.
Learn more about CLS Health and its physician-owned, patient-first approach at CLS.Health or call 281-724-1860.