We are back, friends. I want to take a moment and thank all of you who have been watching and listening over these past few weeks, who have been sharing, commenting, liking, and giving me your time as I’ve shared my story.
If you are just joining in, I have been sharing my own personal life story over the past several weeks. This process has been truly transformational for me. It has brought healing, it has opened up awareness around things I still need to work on, and it has allowed me to share with you in a deeper way.
So please pull up a seat, grab something to drink, and join me as I move into part six.
The Health Crisis No One Saw
After listening back to last week’s episode, I realized there were some things I wanted to go over. My story became our story when Sean and I got married, but there were still things happening personally for me during that time that we didn’t talk about.
If you listened back, you know I had caught parvovirus when I was pregnant with my second son, and then I caught it again right before I met Sean. That second time sent me into an aplastic anemia crisis. It took me a long time to recover. I had literally just gotten better right when Sean walked into my life.
While I was feeling a lot better, my body was still suffering from the loss of blood and the virus. Through that whole first year of our marriage, we went through a big move, and life was going on, but I was still dealing with weird symptoms. Trouble breathing. Gut issues. Brain fog. Weird sensations in my head. Really bad heart palpitations. Anxiety flaring up again.
I saw all the doctors. Endocrinologists, cardiologists, pulmonologists, gastroenterologists, and neurologists. I literally saw all the “ologists” out there. And they could kind of see things were happening, but they couldn’t find a real cause.
The Diagnosis That Changed Everything
Eventually, my primary care doctor wanted to send me to an oncologist-hematologist. When I heard “oncologist,” I thought, am I really here again? I had already seen one before when they ruled out cancer.
Sean and I had just moved into our own home. I got my test results on my birthday that year. When I went in, she sat me down and explained that while it wasn’t cancer, my iron was critically low. Not just iron deficiency. My ferritin stores were at a four. That meant I had practically zero iron in my body.
She said this was causing all my other symptoms. My systems were suffering because there was no iron, and I was losing blood. She recommended an iron infusion immediately.
The Infusions That Nearly Broke Me
The iron they gave me was called iron dextrose, which is actually pretty dangerous. They send waivers home for you to sign because the risks include death or anaphylaxis. Dealing with anxiety, I was terrified.
Sean was so good with me during that time. We were newly married, coming up against another health crisis, and seeing that it wasn’t going away. They tested me for parvo again, and while I didn’t test positive this time, I eventually learned that parvo can stay chronically in your system. It harmed the way my body produces blood and absorbs iron.
The first infusion was about eight hours long. When we were done, I could barely walk to the car. My whole body felt heavy. It started immediately affecting my joints and muscles. I rested for about two solid weeks before I could be part of the world again.
I remember pictures of me on my birthday that year. White as a ghost. Pale. Super thin. You could see it in my eyes. But within two weeks, I woke up and felt like a million bucks. I was a new human being.
When It All Came Back
That lasted for about three years. Then in 2015, I went back for a checkup, expecting everything to be fine. When I got the news that my levels had dropped again, it devastated me. I sat on my bedroom floor crying, asking how this was happening to me again.
At that point, Sean’s sister had moved in with us. I was dealing with her and her children and all the people in our home, thinking I don’t have time for this.
The second infusion went horribly wrong. I woke up the next morning and could not move. My body hurt so bad. My joints felt swollen. They rushed me back and spent the whole day trying to flush the iron out of my system because I was having a reaction.
It took me almost an entire year to fully recover from that reaction. I suffered greatly with my joints. If I was down, I was down. Getting up was excruciating.
The Miracle I Never Expected
In 2021, I had yet another reaction after an infusion. By the time I got home, I couldn’t move my body at all. I started getting a weird rash and was in excruciating pain. We went straight back to the emergency room.
When I went back to my hematologist, she told me she could no longer give me infusions. I had reacted to two different types of iron, and it was extremely dangerous for me to continue. She released me from her care.
I was freaking out. What was I gonna do? Nothing over the counter had ever worked for me.
Through my chiropractor, I found a doctor who called herself a blood detective. She gave me a plant-based supplement called Ferro Food by Standard Process. She swore to me it would work.
Honestly, I didn’t believe her. I went home and didn’t even take them at first. But when we moved to Florida, and I couldn’t get into a doctor for months, I started taking them.
When my blood work came back, I sat in my car crying and called Sean. He answered, expecting bad news, already trying to comfort me. I said, no, you don’t understand. This is the first time in fifteen years that my body has stored iron on its own.
For the first time ever, my ferritin stores were at 25. For most people, that would still be low, but for me, it was giant. I know God touched my body. I have never needed another infusion since. I have not been anemic since 2021.
Austin Becoming a Davis
During all of this, Austin was growing up. He had been with me from the beginning of my crazy story, and he had seen it all.
Once we moved Sean’s sister in, a toll was taken on Austin. We had so many people living in the home, and we didn’t have as much focus, time, and energy for just him. Austin struggled a lot in school. He suffered badly with dyslexia. We had so many meetings at the school. We struggled with teachers. We tried online learning, homeschooling, and eventually put him back in traditional school.
Austin was a little older because he’d missed a lot of school when he was young and had to repeat kindergarten. When he went back, they wanted to hold him back again. By the time he turned 18, he dropped out.
This was devastating to me. I myself had not finished high school and had to get my GED. I didn’t want that for him, but he was an adult, and there was no stopping it.
But through all of this, Austin and Sean had become closer and closer as father and son. Sean wanted to adopt Austin, but he said he had to wait until Austin came to him. It had to be Austin’s decision.
Eventually, Austin did come. He said, yes, I want Sean to adopt me. I want him to be my dad.
In 2015, Sean adopted Austin as his legal son. They bought t-shirts that said “Legend” on the front and “Dairy” on the back, and they wore them together to the courthouse. Our whole family was there. It was a beautiful moment for all of us.
For me, it was a dream come true. I had waited what felt like Austin’s whole life for him to find his place as a son with a father.
Our First Home & Another Loss
When we moved into our first home, it was my 76th move. Saying it out loud, the number feels unreal. I had moved so much in my life. I was like, I’m settling in. I’m never moving again. This is my forever home.
We prepared for Sean’s sister to move out. We helped her and her family get their own place, get set up, helped furnish their apartment. We did all the things to set them up for success.
But as soon as they moved out, there were a lot of tensions. Moving out of a place where someone has been taking care of you for three years and then being on your own wasn’t easy. There were expectations on us to continue providing things we were no longer willing to provide.
When Sean said no, she became hostile. She chose to sever the relationship with our family. After all the work and time and effort we had put in, she blocked us on everything and never spoke to us again. It’s been almost ten years now, and we’ve never heard from her.
It was a devastating loss. I had poured my life, my heart, and my soul into her and those children. Every single day I was with them, taking care of them. To be rewarded with that behavior was something I could not handle.
Key Takeaways
✨ Sometimes the health battles no one sees are the ones that shape you the most.
✨ Miracles don’t always look dramatic. Sometimes they look like a supplement that finally works after fifteen years of struggle.
✨ Adoption is not just legal paperwork. It is a son choosing his father and a father choosing his son.
✨ You cannot make people change, no matter how much you love them. They have to want it for themselves.
✨ Losing people who don’t want freedom for themselves is one of the hardest griefs to carry.
Final Thoughts
I’m gonna stop there, and you can come back next week. I have a surprise for you. Not next week, but the week after, I’m going to have Sean on. He has agreed to come on here and say hello and be a guest, and we can have conversations about some of the things I’ve been talking about. I’m very excited to have him on, and I hope you are too.
I just want you to know that all of the things we do in life, all the things we experience and go through, don’t matter what we’ve done. It doesn’t matter where we’ve been, what we’ve seen, what we’ve experienced.
Freedom is the advantage we already own.
I wish you all the best. I pray for your own willingness. I pray for my continued willingness to do the things I do and to continue making changes in my own life.
