Amy Post | When Your Child is Dying, the Hidden Storm Inside Us All, & Finding Hope In the Light

“Is this all there is?” ~ Amy Post

Guest Bio: In the face of life’s cruelest blows, I found an inner fortitude I never knew I possessed. I’m Amy Post—more than a name, I’m a mother of two, a devoted wife, and an advocate whose determination knows no bounds. The words, “Your daughter has malignant liver cancer,” shook my world, unveiling a rare genetic nightmare promising not one, but three devastating forms of cancer. Life, I realized, is a relentless storm of challenges, a series of “whens” rather than “ifs.” Yet, amid the darkness, I unearthed an unwavering belief in my instincts, challenging fate for the sake of my daughter and myself. I invite you to stand with me, fellow warriors, for I’ve learned this truth: pain carries purpose, and within purpose, we find extraordinary power. Trust your intuition—it’s a beacon in the night. I am not just here to share my story; I’m here to remind you that you are never alone. Together, we possess a strength that can triumph over the deepest shadows.

SHOW NOTES: 

• Website: AmyPost.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/873104174213757
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-post-053a89299
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYvQ36zO-Fipay
• Spotify: Advocacy and Hope by Amy Post

REMARKABLE LISTENER SPECIAL OFFER(S):

• Young Living: Use this link to learn more and buy some of the world’s finest essential oils at https://www.youngliving.com/us/en/referral/1307639

CORE THEMES, KEYWORDS, & MENTIONS:

• hope, the great outdoors, family services, mother-daughter bond, brother drug abuse and prison, letting your children fall and fail, family drama, adaption, saving someone, feeling second best, church bouncing, gift, purpose, healthy relationships, boundaries, healthy boundaries, surface level relationships, deep meaningful relationships, not quitting, choices, decisions, approval seeking, child illness, fear, worry, irrational fears, counting your blessings, western medicine, essential oils, holistic nurse, alternative medicine, chemotherapy, the medical system, a storm inside of me, suicidal, suicide, surrender, surrender to God, advocacy and hope, calmness, Conquering your deepest fears, boundaries, when your child is sick, when the floor falls out, fighting like a warrior, absolute surrender to Go

Transcript

Amy Post | When Your Child is Dying, the Hidden Storm Inside Us All, & Finding Hope In the Light

This episode is brought to you proudly by MyPillow. Go to MyPillow. com forward slash remarkable and enjoy up to 80 percent off everything you order every time. Just use promo code Remarkable and now enjoy this episode.

Hello friends, I'm David Pasqualone and welcome to the Remarkable People Podcast. I gotta tell ya. I love my life. A few weeks ago, a few months ago, a few years ago, I would [00:01:00] never say that. I'd feel guilty for being thankful for my life. That doesn't mean I have a life without struggle, for sure. But I can tell you truly, I love my life.

I get to spend time with you. I get to spend time with our guests. God coordinates everything. We have sponsors like MyPillow who are affiliates that fund this operation while they give you amazing deals. And I just get to hear these remarkable stories. And learn and grow myself. Today you're going to hear Amy Post's story.

Amy's story is going to take you through her childhood and you're going to be able to connect with so many things. She's going to talk to us about hope and never giving up hope. She's going to talk to you about being a high performer and setting boundaries in relationships. And she's going to talk to us about having a child who's sick critically.

With cancer, having procedures go wrong, medical, just [00:02:00] negligence and ignorance, and she's going to talk to us about so many things, how herself she got sick and almost died, but with all of it. No matter where you are in the world, no matter what your worldview, she's going to share with you what we share on the show each week, hopefully, that God is real, that God loves you.

And then when we get to the point of absolute surrender, like truly being like I can't do this. God save me. He does. And that's where we get fulfillment, peace, joy, and so much more. So you are in for a huge blessing with this episode. Listen to it from start to finish. Reach out to Amy or myself if we can help you in any way.

And then share this with your family and friends because it will help encourage people. Especially those going through the relational lows, the family stresses, the child, the children with [00:03:00] illnesses, that as parents, we feel helpless when we can't help them. But more than anything, those of us with a hole in our heart, that feel empty, that on the surface have everything going for us.

But yet there's still an absence. Amy's going to show you how to fill that. So at this time, get your pens and paper ready, unless you're driving and enjoy this episode with our remarkable friend, Amy Post.

[00:03:25] 5 INTERVIEW Amy Post 5 Feb 2024: Hey, Amy, how are you today? I'm doing great, David. How about you? Man, I'm fantastic. Remarkable, even. So I am pumped for today's episode. I just told our listeners a little bit about you and your background, but they're excited as I am to dig in, to hear your story, see how they can apply your successes to their lives and share the same growth.

So before we get going. I know we're going to talk about a ton of things and gold nuggets and, you know, truths and habits that people can form from your life that they [00:04:00] can apply to theirs. But if our listeners stick through this episode, what's one truth or habit or just knowledge that you're going to guarantee they will leave here with?

Wow. So I've had a lot of time to really think about that, but I think really just. Looking into the world and just knowing that you can face anything, facing your deepest fears. Conquering them, knowing that there is power and purpose and pain and that there's hope. Yeah. That's one of my biggest things that you'll hear me say a lot is, is hope.

So that's probably it in a nutshell. Well, that's a good nutshell on how many of us need it, right? Everybody needs hope. Everybody needs that kind of encouragement at different times. So let's get into it. Amy, everything that's happened to you, good, bad, ugly, pretty, pretty ugly. Everything in life made you the woman you are today.

So let's start at [00:05:00] your birth. What was your upbringing like? And we'll work through today and then we'll transition to where's Amy today? And where are you heading? So after you help us for an hour, how can we help you? So where's Amy from? What's your background? Yeah. So I live in St. Louis, Missouri. Now I've lived here for 20 some years, but grew up in very small areas.

Very rural actually right outside of Branson, Missouri is a small little area called Taneyville and Foreside. So you don't blink, you'll miss it. Very, very small. My grandparents had cattle farms. So, you know, I spent a lot of time, you know, just outdoors, you know, with my grandparents and the garden and the cattle farm and, you know, really just.

You know, living that kind of life, it was very, it was very different to kind of what I live now. You know, it was very slow paced. It was really just a, just a fun childhood. So I went to a really small school. Most [00:06:00] of my schools were very small and you know, really just, you know, I think I I, I still love the outdoors and I think I, I grew a huge love for the outdoors.

From my father, he's, you know, very much kind of that outdoorsy guy, fishing, hunting, grew up riding motorcycles, four wheelers, you know, just fishing, doing anything we could outside. Spent a bunch of time in Colorado in the mountains. That's probably one of my favorite places still today in the entire world, you know, just, just being in the, in nature.

So, you know, I mean, it wasn't anything overly exciting, you know, we were, you know, just Middle class family. My mother worked for family services for gosh, 40 some years. That was probably 1 of my most vivid memories is, you know, when my mother started working for family services, she was on the unit where she would be called in the middle of the night.[00:07:00]

By the police department and she would have to, you know, go get, you know, children that were being abused out of homes and she wasn't allowed to talk about it or tell us anything or share her feelings. And so it was just, it was a very interesting relationship that I had with my mother because. She didn't share, she didn't talk a lot.

So it was, it wasn't that, you know, mother daughter bonding relationship that I think that I, I really wanted. And so I think I spent a lot of my life really chasing what that looked like, you know, how to just be able to spend time with her. And then on the flip side, you have my father, who's just this, you know, kid at heart and, you know, lots of motorcycles and four wheelers and fishing every time he could.

And Vacations and traveling. So just very, very different. So, not that either of them were, were good, bad or the other. It's just, you know, that's kind of how it was. I had one older brother, he was a year and a [00:08:00] half older and gosh, he and I were best friends until he was 16 and he got into hardcore drugs.

And, you know, I really didn't see him anymore. It was prison and drugs after that. And so that was a really sad time. I think anybody that has ever faced anything like that knows that. Yeah, that's really tough to go through no matter which side you're on. So my brother and I really just lost touch and it went spiraling down.

I don't, I don't think he spent much time out of prison. And when he did, it was, you know, heart wrenching, you know, he would break into my parents house. He would steal everything, you know, threaten to kill us all. You know, it was just, it was just a different, you know, different upbringing. So, That, you know, haunted us for many, many years.

And he began having children at a very young age. I think his first [00:09:00] child, he was maybe 16. And so that just lent itself to a lot of challenges. And my parents adopted his second child. And that was rough. Back then. You know, the mother always received custody of the children no matter what. And I know the court systems have slightly altered and changed, but that was something that was unheard of was for a mother to not receive custody.

And my parents actually received custody of my, my my brother's second child. And they were parents all over again. So. And how old were you at this point? Gosh, I was 18. 17 or 18 at that point. So that's still young to be a mother, but you technically could have been your, the mother. Yeah. And maybe I was younger.

So maybe, [00:10:00] maybe 14, 15, he started having children, you know, very young and his first child, he's still, I think to this day, never seen. So, you know, I, I think I, I kind of almost lose track, but. It was, it was really rough, you know, I, I took a backseat to my brother because, you know, my parents always wanted to save him.

You know, everybody, the entire family wanted to save him. They were always, you know, running to his rescue, bailing him out of prison and offering him just about anything just to get him to, you know, get out of that life, you know, stop doing drugs, just live a good life. And I saw this very unusual life.

Rolling out in front of me and I was the good child, you know, I made good grades. I didn't get into trouble and I saw this just entitlement from my brother and it's. [00:11:00] I look back today and it's something that I think I'll never forget. You know, my parents just really being those individuals that would not let him fail.

And I get it, you know, now I'm a parent. And so it's, it's different as I look back through those different lenses, but it's still one of those things where, you know, you kind of have to let your kids fall and fail. And throughout my, my childhood, you know, my parents would never do that. And they were just.

Really, really, I think, feeling as though they could, they could bring him out of that, you know, they could offer him money. They could offer him to buy his schooling anywhere he wanted to go. And something I didn't tell you is my brother never had to open a book. He got A's without even opening up a book.

It was just Everything came easy to him. And for me, nothing came easy for me. And at first through my life, seeing this, it was a little tough to swallow. You [00:12:00] know, I was the one working really hard, getting good grades, and he was the one just receiving everything. So at a very young age, I started working.

I worked for my cousin's dry cleaning company. And then when I graduated from high school, I worked at a small tanning salon and it. One day the owners decided, you know, to sell it and offered the employees first dibs on buying it. And I went to my father and said, yeah, you know, sure. I went to my mother and she said, absolutely not.

And I went back to my father again and he said, sure. So he gave me the money and my mother put me on a stringent amortized payment of five years at a 10 percent interest. And this was when I was 18, I'll be 48 this year. So they made a good amount of money on that loan. But I think, you know, I think my mother didn't feel that I was going to succeed.

You know, she was just kind of one of those individuals [00:13:00] that I don't think she ever saw me succeeding. And, you know, we'll get into more of that, but, you know, I not only paid it off, I paid it off in four years, had a successful business, catapulted into a couple additional businesses, and then sold it six years later.

And, you know, I was right out of, out of high school and. You know, I really didn't want to go to college, but I did. I took 18 hours at a local college there in Springfield, Missouri and owned my business for six years and sold them at the top of the, you know, top of the market when things were going great.

So at that point, I had been helping my mother pretty much solely raise my, my brother's second child for about six years. And. He was like, he was my own. I loved him like he was my own. So, you know, decisions at that point were really tough, but I knew I needed to get kind of [00:14:00] out of the small town. So I made a difficult decision to move to St.

Louis and I didn't know, but two people in St. Louis and wanted to get involved. I needed to go back to school, transfer my credits and, you know, kind of figure out what else I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to go into business, but I wasn't really sure. So I ended up going to business school in Vienna, Austria, and then graduated in St.

Louis with communications, marketing minor, and a double minor in in Spanish. So after that kind of moved around, I moved to Florida, moved back to St. Louis. You're just really trying to find, find myself. And I think a lot of that was, you know, from my upbringing of, you know, kind of being what I felt was, you know, always second best, you know, that, that I kept, you know, being second best, no matter what I did.

So I think I was searching for things even really early in life and kind of that, that [00:15:00] purpose and, you know, the gift. You know, we'd go to church. I spent many years with my parents bouncing around from different churches and, you know, hearing all of this kind of conversation of, you know, what is your gift?

What is your purpose? And it was as if it was some sort of tangible thing that I was supposed to just run into or meet one day or somebody just hand me. And so I think for many years, it was a very confusing process. And my parents weren't very good at communicating and Really talking about things. So, you know, we really didn't talk about God or church much.

We would just kind of bounce around from different churches and try to figure out, you know, which one might stick. And, you know, we didn't. So my upbringing was good. I think I look back now and it had some really positive aspects that have really kind of made me who I am today. So [00:16:00] after I came back from business school and then graduated, I ended up, Just kind of, you know, kind of trying to figure out what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to get into sales.

So that kind of catapulted me getting into medical sales. And I've been in medical sales for about 20 some years. It's, it's just one of my passions. But when I look back in my schooling biology was absolutely my worst subject. I hated it. I wanted nothing to do with it, but I think from a really young age.

I always saw myself needing to lean into the things that I wasn't good at, just to see if I could do something better. I could impress my parents. I could just be that person that maybe had that step above my brother. Maybe I would be able to step into his shoes and be offered the world, you know, my school paid for, you know, money thrown [00:17:00] at me.

I just, I think that that's really what I was striving for. But, You know, it really lost. I think that's another thing that I, I look back and know that I was, I was pretty lost within my life. Just trying to find a purpose that I really didn't know the definition to, but I think I was, I was really just looking in a lot of the wrong places for what that purpose might have been because.

You know, the purpose was right in front of me. You know, I was a great person. I, you know, I didn't get in trouble and, you know, I just wanted to kind of persevere and, and do good things in life. So that's kind of up to, several years ago. But I've, I've been in sales for about 20 some years so far.

Yeah. And when you're talking, I'm thinking like two or three, I may have a ton of questions, but two or three key points is number one, like when you felt that distance from your mother. Probably every man especially wants to [00:18:00] please his father. Like we want to please our mom too, but there's something different about the way we please our mother and the way we want approval of our father.

And for a lady, the way you have relationship with your mother and when her approval is different than your father. So did you feel like you were daddy's girl or did you feel like there was kind of a distance between both of you and you were always second to your brother? There was a distance between us both, and I was just always in second position, or what I felt was second position.

You know, my father, he bounced around from different jobs, and my mother kept her job with family services. Gosh, almost 50 years and retired from there. So she was the woman that kept the job for as long as possible, no matter what you know, didn't give up. But yet my father was this kind of jump around, you know, jump from different jobs.

He did modeling. He did voiceovers. I mean, just a [00:19:00] great looking guy, had just all these different talents. And I admired that about him. He loved to have fun. He loved to travel. So I really loved that. We loved the outdoors. So I think I really bonded with him in regards to learning my love for the outdoors.

And like I told you earlier, it's still one of my biggest passions. When I'm not working, I'm outdoors. I mean, that is just my thing, but that's also. Where I find God, you know, that is just this something, this synergistic place. It doesn't matter. The outdoors is just special for me. So that was sort of a bond between my dad and I, and, and I think it was a great bond for him too.

Yet, I think. Even at that point, I knew that there was sadness that they felt of not being able to save my brother, you know, just they wanted more than anything to save him. And I think for them not being able to be that savior and be able to control the situation was [00:20:00] really tough for them. It put my parents in a really bad place.

Especially when they, you know, adopted my, my nephew and that was the beginning of the end of my parents. You know, you can only want to save somebody so much, you know, at some point you, you really have to kind of look back and see, you know, what's healthy and what's not healthy. And I think, you know, my conversations with my mom trying to speak with her about, you know, taking a step back and really just, this is not healthy.

We, we could never have those kinds of deep conversations. And once again, I felt second best. And I felt that there was something wrong with me because, you know, maybe I wasn't capable of having these deep conversations with people. And so I think a lot of the situation with my mother. Led me to, I could have gone down a different [00:21:00] path of maybe not feeling good about myself, but it instead gave me this fire in my belly to be super successful.

Make sure that I took care of myself kept myself healthy, did what I needed to do, put boundaries up. I learned how to put boundaries up very, very early in my early 20s is just setting those healthy boundaries with everyone in your life and knowing what that looked like and what it should feel like.

Because There were no boundaries when, when I grew up and that was really confusing. I don't think I knew it as much as I do now and how confusing it was for me. But as we kind of roll this movie forward to, you know, why you and I are on this conversation, it'll make a lot more sense about all of that.

So I had a different relationship with both of my parents kind of to, to answer your question. It was. It was [00:22:00] wildly different with both of them. Yeah. And what you're describing, so many of us listening, you know, we have listeners all over the world and different cultures, but they know exactly what you're talking about.

And I have, I'm sure you're going to unpack a lot of what I'm thinking and our listeners are thinking, but before we go forward, healthy boundaries are so important. And I'm sure you'll get into that. But if we to use this as a stopping point, You know, we can learn from successes. We can learn from failures.

And like you said, even though you could have went in another direction, something inside of you kept you moving a positive direction. You took the negative and maybe not even always for the best reason, but you made it something positive in your life. But for those listening right now, when it comes to boundaries, what are some examples of healthy boundaries that you've learned that really have protected you [00:23:00] and helped you to thrive?

Yeah, you know, the boundaries really had to start with my brother. I had to cut ties with him at a semi early age and really just letting him know that. I wasn't on board with how he treated my parents or how he treated me, but mostly it was for them. It was really advocating for my parents and because they just weren't setting those boundaries.

They weren't advocating for themselves. I mean, I can tell you now having children, you know, if, if my child. Spoke to me the way that my brother did to my parents and broke into their house numerous times, stole everything that they own, pawned it off for drugs, you know, threatened to kill them, you know, it just setting those boundaries of that is not appropriate, you know, I know that I was his sister.

And so it was a situation where he really didn't take me [00:24:00] seriously. And. That was okay, but it was, it was more of setting those boundaries for myself, but also just letting him know that those weren't appropriate things. But then it really went into setting those boundaries with my parents. of, you know, I can't watch this any longer.

You know, I love you. I can't watch this any longer. And, you know, I wanted to help them so much. And we went through many years of me, just kind of, it was very surface level. Everything was surface level with my parents. Get into deep conversations and, you know, I let them know if they wanted to accept me, they could accept me, but I, I don't want surface level relationships.

I want deep, meaningful relationships. And if they weren't. If I wasn't willing to do that, then, you know, we needed to step away from each other. We need to just kind of take that distance. And it was heart wrenching. You know, I had lost my brother. I didn't have a relationship with my parents [00:25:00] for quite some time.

It was, it was really tough. Yet then, you know, I still had two sets of grandparents, two sets of great grandparents that I did have very close relationships with. You know, they were very open to having those, those meaningful conversations. And. You know, they were kind of in the same boat that I was, you know, not understanding why, you know, my parents were allowing, you know, everything to go on.

And they were just as deep as they could be, but I don't think that they could see out. I don't think that they could see how unsafe it was and how detrimental it was to my brother. And so those, I did have good relationships with them. And I think That was a part that I miss so much. You know, I miss my grandparents.

I miss my great grandparents. And I don't, I don't know if, you know, even today that my parents actually understand, you know, those, the sense of boundaries, you know, we've been through 30 some [00:26:00] years of drugs and prison and it not only affected my brother, it then affected you My nephew, who they adopted, you know, he ended up in prison, drugs, I mean, a life of crime.

So it just kept moving on, but it allowed me to set those really healthy boundaries with friends. You know, I, I don't do drama. I don't do backstabbing, you know, I want those meaningful, deep relationships with people that are, you know, going to hold me accountable and that I can hold them accountable and just.

Having something deeper than what I did growing up. I just wanted something more that I didn't know what it looked like, but I really wanted to see. And then trying to move into setting boundaries with those who I dated, you know, what I would and wouldn't, you know, put up with, or what I was looking for in someone.

And You know, then that went into, you know, what I'm looking for in a job and [00:27:00] what I will and what I won't, you know, put up with in management. And I've made some hard decisions in my career, had a great career, but I've had to make some really hard decisions and set some really deep boundaries in that as well.

So I think it's really stemmed in, in all areas of my life. But that was 1 of the probably most important, most meaningful things that I ever did was just setting healthy boundaries. And I think that. Boundaries don't have to be harsh, you know, that they can be extremely healthy. And I think if the person on the other end doesn't understand that, it's probably someone you kind of need to move on from.

Yeah. And thank you for being so transparent and opening me. Again, we go through your life because all of this made you the strong woman you are today, the healthy woman you are today. So. Hopefully this is people are connecting. I'm sure they're connecting and hopefully it's going to help them. But I keep thinking about the verse in the Bible.

It says how all things work together [00:28:00] for good to them that love God, to them, according to his purpose. And, you know, other people say things don't happen to you, but they happen for you. So even the worst quote unquote, bad things we can learn and grow from, they turn out good. And. Your brother in these boundaries played such a big role in your life that I don't want to keep talking about him.

And you don't have to answer this question, but was he just making these choices or did something happen to him in his childhood and their parents compensated for it? Like, you know, is there any kind of tragedy or rape or any kind of instance? That, you know, warped him and then made your parents feel guilty.

So they allowed the behavior, you know, not, not to my knowledge. I've. I've looked back and searched for, you know, as long as I can remember to see what happened. And I can [00:29:00] honestly tell you, and this may sound so interesting, but it's just one of the, the things that I know about myself is the harder I've had to work for something, the more I've appreciated it.

I've never had anything come easy to me in my entire life, and that I am extremely blessed for. I'm glad I didn't have things come, come easy for me, but I also, I don't quit. Somewhere within my life you know, I have just Made that as one of my goals. And I think my parents didn't really allow us to quit.

You know, I was in all kinds of different sports, it was in cheerleading, dance, anything, track, everything that I could do, I wanted to do it. I mean, I think one of the things my parents, you know, it was difficult for them was there wasn't anything that I didn't want to do. And with my brother, there wasn't anything that he wanted to do.

No sports, no [00:30:00] activities. Very just kind of a, he had a lot of friends though. That was the weird thing. So David, it's so hard to put the connection together and believe me, I tried for many, many years to analyze those types of things of what, what happened, but I think because he was so smart and everything came easy to him, he never pushed himself to ever do anything that would allow him to struggle or that didn't come easy.

And it was just. A mindset, but also it was his choice. It was a decision for him to do that. You know, he then navigated towards friends that were easy. He navigated towards everything that was easy. And he found out that I think he could manipulate my parents and he could manipulate women. And that was, I think, a sickness for him.

And I do believe that that is, you know, a sickness for people is just knowing that you can manipulate people to do whatever you [00:31:00] want and get whatever you want, but you've never had to work for anything in your entire life. And I think that all of that was maybe a perfect storm that really led him to some people that Then I, maybe I don't think he loved himself.

Because he allowed himself to get in with these drug dealers and people that really didn't think anything of themselves, you know, didn't have any, any self worth, but yet didn't have to have deep conversations. You know, they were too busy being, you know, high and on drugs and heroin and, and who knows what.

So I think it was just a, it was a really unique, perfect storm that developed him into who he was and. To who I was, because I saw all of that and knew that I didn't want anything to do with it. I remember making a list. I was in my room years ago. I was probably, [00:32:00] gosh, I mean, I was probably 15, 16, and I made a list of everything that I wanted to be like and take from my parents and everything that I wanted to leave behind and that I didn't want to be like them.

And the list of what I didn't want to be like, outnumbered the list that I did. And that was my decision to move. So if the other side of the list had been longer, I don't think that I would have moved. I think I would have stayed there. But it was one of those weird decisions that I, that I made, and I think just not having that relationship with my brother any longer, seeing that my parents were just in this, this fog.

And then the adoption, I think, really tore them apart. And that was the end of it. And so I think that. You know, my work was done there. I don't think I could have been more productive. And I knew that there was something else out in this [00:33:00] world for me. I mean, I think it was something that ate me up all the time.

I would always think, you know, is this, is this all there is? I had a, you know, a fine life. I mean, I wasn't the one doing drugs. I wasn't, you didn't have anything else going on that was, you know, horrible in my life, but I was, you know, always thinking, is this it? What else is there? There has to be something more.

And I know I'm cut out for something much better, but I have absolutely no idea what it is and where I'm going to find it, but I'm going to go out on my own and figure it out. And, you know, that's what I did. I'm, I moved away and, you know, didn't know anyone moved to St. Louis and really just started a new life.

Nice. And then take us from there. So all this stuff, it's making you an exceptional human, and you're not even realizing it, but you're trying to find your way and you're analyzing and you're, I mean, most adults aren't making lists of the qualities and characteristics that we want to embody. Right. And whether you've read a book or just God put in your heart, you're learning this.

And You know, [00:34:00] through history, through the Bible history, through our own, you and I and everybody listening, we all know people who've had pretty much on paper, the ideal life, and they still chose poorly. And we have other people who had terrible lives and they're remarkable and their lives are completely different than what you'd expect on paper.

So now you move out, you're, you went overseas, you got your degree. Where does your life go from there, Amy? Yeah, you know after I moved back from Vienna, graduated, I ended up moving to Florida for a short period of time. Really just trying to, to figure out where I needed to be. I didn't, I didn't stay in Florida, but a couple of years.

I really miss the seasons. I really knew that more of the Midwest, And or, you know, somewhere in the mountains were more for me. So I think right then it was just, you know, trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I then, I got my first job in, in [00:35:00] medicine. I went into veterinary sales and That was, that was fantastic.

I remember getting the job, talking to the owner of a very small medical company, he had never met me and just knowing kind of my history and business ownership and speaking with me over the phone, he hired me, you know, sight unseen. And so then for, you know, eight plus years, I traveled the nation and.

Really enjoyed veterinary sales. It was an absolute, you know, joy to, to be able to get into this field and really just try to try to find myself. I was in a really bad relationship. It was a six year relationship that I don't think I ever saw myself in. I didn't set the right boundaries with that one individual.

And it's something that haunted me for a really long time. I chose a wrong person that.[00:36:00]

He, he wanted this perfect world. He wanted this perfect life that didn't exist. He wanted lots of money. He wanted to, you know, just live this glamorous, wonderful life, but yet he had somebody great sitting right in front of him, but I wasn't good enough for him because my family wasn't wealthy. And I wasn't wealthy and that, for me, took another kind of step back.

I went into some, some deep depression for several years and just really feeling lost, not knowing how I was going to step out of this. You know, I had spent my childhood feeling that I wasn't good enough. And that, you know, no one was going to love me for some reason. I couldn't figure out why. The harder I tried, the more I did, the more money I made, the better I looked, the nicer clothes I wore.

I just felt that I could make people like me. And I was turning [00:37:00] into this person that I didn't recognize. I then started chasing things that weren't healthy. And this, you know, six year relationship was very unhealthy with this man. And I barely made it out, you know, I just made a decision that this was not something healthy for me.

And one of my girlfriends told me to go to the gym at five o'clock at night. And I said, you're crazy. I said, I go to the gym at five in the morning. I don't go at five at night. I am not that kind of person. I am not looking for any guy at some gym at five o'clock at night. Like, do you not know me? It just, that's not where my head was.

I wasn't a partier. I didn't go out and do stuff. I mean, I studied around the clock. I graduated with a 4. 0. I mean, I just, I loved books. I love studying and learning and that's just who I was. Well, I took her advice and I went to the gym at five o'clock and I met the man that I'm married to now. [00:38:00] And we've been married for 16 years.

So, you know, I think at that moment I think I realized that everything happens for a reason, no matter what it is. And no matter what you go through, everything happens for a reason and God puts you there for a reason. And I didn't know the half of that statement when I was kind of making it to myself when I met my husband and, oh, we ended up, I think we got married maybe three years later after, after we met and we had a son his name is Zachary.

He's now almost 17. I didn't realize the words, you know, rattling around in my head of. You know, everything happens for a reason and there [00:39:00] is power and purpose in the pain that you go through. And God does put you in places that are absolutely 100 percent necessary for you. And you may not understand it at that time, but I think, you know, just really taking a deep look at that.

And yeah, wow. Our daughter was then born when our son was A little over three and life was great. You know, we had great jobs. I had transitioned into a different job. I went into medical aesthetics. I didn't have a the nation is my territory. I had a smaller territory. I could spend more time at home and we had a great life.

Nothing to complain about. Made good money, did whatever we want, took fun vacations and life was great. But there was this nagging voice in the back of my head. That still just kept saying, is this all [00:40:00] there is? Is this all there is? And I remember just wondering what on earth, I just couldn't figure out why I couldn't.

Be calm or settled or I was just consistently, I don't know, agitated, thinking about the future, preparing something that I couldn't put my finger on. And it, it caused a little bit of challenge for my husband and I, you know, he didn't understand what I was going through. Heck, I didn't understand what I was going through.

But I really just kind of placed it, you know, in the back of my mind. And, you know, we had a really good life there for about the first 3 years that we were married. And then our son was born and I spent every moment with him. What I forgot to tell you earlier was. I never wanted children. I never wanted to get married.

I never wanted children. Even, even after my nephew I remember [00:41:00] saying that my nephew would be my only child. You know, that would be the only child that I would ever want. I think with my upbringing, I just didn't see a lot of healthiness. And so I really didn't want to get into that situation because I think I felt I was going to be a failure, but yet I didn't know why I thought I'd be a failure.

I helped you raise my nephew and. It was just, it was wonderful. It's great. Six years, you know, helping my mother raise him. But, you know, once I had my son, it, it all changed. He was just the light of my life. I spent every waking moment with him. And so that was kind of right before our lives changed. We received the worst news that anybody could probably ever imagine receiving.

So up until that point, Life was good. Yeah. And then

[00:42:00] you are an exceptional human and above average in the sense of maturity and your thought process, even growing up. But for all of our listeners who are connecting with you and. They're seeing the similarities in their childhood. And today I do want to raise a giant red flag. Cause you described Amy, whether it's looking back, you can see it and maybe you can't, but there's huge parallels listening to you between trying to win the approval of your parents that you couldn't, and then you.

Whether it's conscious or subconscious, you saw that in that bad relationship for six years. It was almost like, if I can't win the approval with my parents, I'm going to prove my get, get this guy's approval. And we all do that. I did that. I had a narcissistic upbringing and guess what? I married absolute gaslighting narcissist because in my mind, even people are beat.

People have horrible [00:43:00] situations, but there's a sick comfort. And the known is better than the unknown. And even though we want to get healthy, sometimes we don't see it and we go right back in the same situation or worse. So to everybody listening, that's a huge red flag. Make sure you're not going out of the, what is it?

Don't go out of the pot into the fire, right? But let's take a second, because I want, we want to get to where you're at in your life and your story. But before we go, you went from a terrible human for six years. And relationship to the man you married, what changed in between? It wasn't just, you went to the gym at 5 PM and got lucky.

What happened after that bad relationship that set up the boundaries for the good? Well, it wasn't a great relationship in the beginning. He was a wonderful person, but we didn't have a lot in common. It was a very [00:44:00] interesting situation. And I think I still didn't understand why I was so drawn to him. But yet.

I look back now, 16 years later, and I can honestly tell you, I didn't know myself. And I think all of us can, you know, say that, you know, we change and evolve and if we're not moving forward and evolving, then we're dying. So, you know, I can look back and know that, you know, he was absolutely wonderful. We absolutely loved each other, but we had huge mountains, to climb in regards to just kind of our different.

Personalities and, you know, where we, where we saw ourselves. And it was an unusual situation where I think he was looking for someone to kind of mold him. And I was looking for something to kind of help me figure out myself. And we just kind of meshed and molded together. It's not been an easy 16 years, but that then [00:45:00] alludes itself to a lot of my story.

And. Go into it then. Go on. I didn't mean to cut you off. I just want to make sure people stop and think and there's, we all can fall right into the same, same lanes. Yeah, you know, and I've always been one that, I mean, I, I look fear dead in the eye. I always have my entire life. I've looked everything in the eye of if I couldn't do it, if I feared it, if I hated it, if I literally just.

Sweat thinking about it, I would lean into everything. It didn't matter what it was. I remember being in college and absolutely was petrified to get up in front of people and speak. And what did I do? I went hardcore into business, marketing, speech and debate, negotiations. I went, I did debate around the country.

I, I, and I would get up there and. I could barely speak, but I had to do it because that was the [00:46:00] person. If there's something that I can't do, I'm going to do it because I think a lot of my upbringing was just this, you're not good enough. You're not good enough. You're not good enough. No, no one was telling me that.

And I look back now, I have a totally different relationship with my parents. They didn't ever tell me that. It was in my mind. It's just what I felt. So there's a totally different feeling of, of who I am now, but it did take some. Some huge dropping to my knees to get to the point and to the person that I am today.

And I think that, you know, that's one of the reasons my husband and I are together. I mean, I'm not an easy person to be with. I'm, I think I'm a very nice person, very giving person. I am very loving, but I expect a lot. I have high expectations. I've always had them of myself. And so I do have high expectations of everybody else.

And I've always told people That's one of my boundaries. I have high expectations [00:47:00] and that boundary bubble of, you know, high expectations has been probably my closest bubble. It's been my biggest boundary. So, you know, my husband and I have made a lot of sacrifices and really just tried to figure each other out.

But once again, he doesn't communicate very well. I didn't communicate very well. So I entered something that was just, once again, very. Difficult. It was very interesting. And so, wow. Yeah. My son was three and a half. No, no, some was six. So my son was six and I, and I'm already shaking. My son was six and. My daughter was three and we get a phone call from the daycare and the other person on the other line told me that our daughter had just sat down on the playground.

She didn't want to play and I thought, you know, something's wrong. Like my [00:48:00] motherly instincts just went, just went up. And there wasn't any reason. She just sat down. I urgently, you know, frantically drove as fast as I could to the daycare to get her. I just knew that something was wrong. And, you know, I'd had these boilings in me for years of just unsettled.

Feelings. I couldn't, I, I, I, I envy people who were called, I envy people who didn't always have this, some sort of weird fear in the back of their brain in the back of their mind all the time. And so I went to pick her up and she had a really bad stomach ache, just said she didn't feel good. She, had sporadic temperatures and so I kept her home that next day and then that was on a Friday and I just stayed with her and we played games and I just, I, I didn't, I don't even think I left the room. I took her in every room where I was. I just couldn't even leave her alone. I just didn't know what was going on, but I had the worst feeling.

[00:49:00] And so inside, it wasn't like just my kid's home sick from school. You really felt something different. Okay. Yeah, I did. And my husband was, you know, trying to keep me positive and Saturday rolled around. She seemed to feel a little bit better. She's stomach aches still hurting. I thought, you know, maybe she's just, just not feeling too good.

And then on Sunday she spiked 104 temperature and was just bellowing over and screaming in pain. And so my husband rushed her to an urgent, urgent care. I shouldn't have the emergency room in a nearby hospital just around the corner from us. And he woke me up at 5 30 the next morning and said, Amy, we have to go.

And I said, what do you mean? Where do we have to go? I said, what time is it? And he said, it's 530. And I said, Oh my God, I slept through my alarm. And he said, no, you didn't. He said, I turned off your alarm. He said, we have to go to [00:50:00] the hospital. I was supposed to fly to California that morning for a national sales meeting with the medical company that I worked for.

But the night before I had gotten such a horrible stomach ache. I thought the two of us, I thought she and I had, you know, the stomach flu or something just really bad. You know, it wasn't really, right. Trying to think too much more, but I was getting a little bit worried. And so my husband told me that he got a call at 3 30 in the morning from the hospital and they had run some, some blood panels and said, you need to, you need to rush her to children's hospital.

As soon as you can, when everybody wakes up, just, just get her there. So I took my, my son out to the bus and my husband took my daughter to St. Louis children's, and this was a different hospital than we had taken her the night before. Three months before she got sick, we moved and we moved much further from the main children's hospital. [00:51:00] And I remember I told my husband, I just don't think that we should move. And I was really unsettled. Just a little off my rocker. I mean, he would ask him and he would say, yeah, she was, she was very unsettled.

It was, it was a little scary. And I said, what if something happens? Then we're, we're much further away from the hospital. What if something happens? And he said, nothing is going to happen. Like, I think you're just worried, you know, you're, you know, you just had, you know, you know, two kids recently and you know, kids are young.

They hurt themselves. They get sick. You're just, you're just, you know, you just need to kind of settle down. But I remember that that feeling just wouldn't leave me. And on that morning, when I had to take my son to the bus stop and then drive to the hospital, it was a bumper to bumper traffic, trying to get to that hospital.

And we sat in this white little room in the emergency area. And [00:52:00] it was probably the longest day of our entire life. And tests after tests was being run. And probably after about, I don't know, probably about seven hours, at least. The doctor came in and he was as white as a sheet, just I, I, I didn't know what was wrong.

But I thought he was going to faint and he said, I really hate to tell you this, but your three year old daughter has malignant liver cancer and she's. We already have a room upstairs for her. We've got blood transfusions ready. We're going to start chemotherapy on Friday. She's going to need a transplant.

It's bad. It's really bad. And we're, we're just, we're not going to sugar coat this for you. It's really bad. And my husband took me upstairs. We got settled and he left. And our story wasn't just You know, you, you are admitted into the hospital and you know, what's going to happen, you know, when you're going to go [00:53:00] home, you know, answers like we had no answers.

We had no idea what was going on. We had rings of, you know, fellows and nurses that were just storming into our room, you know, thousands of wires, hooking her up, you know, buzzers and beepers and people running around us and. I just remember knowing that, that our life was over for, for quite some time. And I don't know how detailed, you know, you want me to get into this.

I'll kind of give you just an overview because my book goes into it in a pretty eloquent way of what we went through. But, you know, we were given that news and the next morning I, Walked over to the coffee little coffee room that was diagonal. And my, my internal alarm had gone off at, you know, 4 35 o'clock.

I was up I hadn't slept that night, but a couple of minutes and I walked over and there was a gentleman in the coffee room and I got some coffee and. And I said, what are you in here for? It was [00:54:00] like, it was like we were in prison or something, you know, it was like, what are you in here for? And he had told me about his son who had cancer when he was very young, about my daughter's age.

And then he was, home for a while and then just recently diagnosed with brain cancer and they were back again. And I remember just tears streaming down my face and walking back over as I'm kind of drying my tears. And I remember thinking that first morning. That we had nothing to feel bad about or sorry about because that shook me.

And I knew that this entire journey, we were going to meet people that were going to have worse experiences, better experiences, but I knew it was, it was going to be bad. But from that day on, I vowed that. I would never spend 1 day not being blessed about something, finding something to be grateful for and counting my blessings.

And that was going to be 1 of the only reasons and ways that we [00:55:00] were going to make it out of there. And I met with the mentor that morning. She handed me about, oh wow, it was probably 12 inches tall of binders of what we were going to go through, procedures, treatments, medications. She was put on 16 medications.

I mean, it was just probably one of the scariest times I've ever been through in my entire life. And I remember she looked at me and she said, Amy, she said, children die and 90 percent of parents get divorced. So you just need to get prepared for this. She said, it doesn't look good. She said, your, your daughter is really sick.

And that moving forward took me through just journeys. I spent four weeks in the hospital with her every single time, and we would be released for about 24 hours. And we would be called back immediately. Blood work would come back wrong and we would get a phone call. Less than 24 hours. Sometimes we'd get to stay home a full day and [00:56:00] we would have to go back again and it was over and over and over and it was, you know, 1 year and then it was 2 years and it was just.

If you didn't think the floor could drop out any further, it did every time we turned around. And I was allowed to find, I think, a stronger person within me than I ever knew existed. But I do know that everything leading up to this point was My ability to advocate for myself and for my daughter because I wasn't going to deal with anything that was going on in the hospital because there were so many things that were wrong.

So I called numerous board meetings. I challenged the doctors. I pushed back. I asked why I had fellows thrown out of our room. I had them actually thrown out of the entire hospital. I had protocols changed. It was, it was a person [00:57:00] that I didn't really recognize, but You know, nine years, almost 10 years later, looking back, it's developed me into the person that I am, and I think it's one of the only reasons that we made it out of that hospital alive.

And, you know, we found all kinds of different options, you know, Western medicine was not going, I was not going to lay down for it. I was not going to lay down for what they told us. I wasn't going to lay down for the bullying, you know, the 100 percent guarantees of negativity. I was not going to have it.

Because one thing I knew is my daughter. Everything that I did said everything. She, she fed off of me. So if I was negative, it was going to be a really negative ride. And I knew that I had to be positive every single day, but that ability to be positive that every turn we would turn the corner and the floor would just fall out over and over and over again.

But I learned, you know, it's, [00:58:00] it's not how many times you're knocked down. It's that you get back up every single time and you continue to fight. And you continue to face your deepest fears that you've never even known that you could get over. And hopefully those are things that I instilled in my daughter, but it was, it was a wild, wild ride to even get out of that hospital.

Yeah. And then, so what was the journey like? So the doctors are using, like you said, Western medicine, not typically, it's not that you throw out Western medicine. It's not that you go all holistic. There's a balance, but how did your journey proceed to get out of there? Yeah. You know, I, I started just. I researched all the time.

It was just, you know, continually Googling, calling friends. Of course, I worked for a lot of physicians. A lot of them pulled strings for me with friends. Everything they could find. But every [00:59:00] turn that I, I went into, it was always this 1 answer. Western medicine, the traditional, that was it. That's all you're going to get.

That's all you have. And I think once I started thinking outside the box and my husband brought essential oils to us. One day and we started just really, you know, dabbling in them and we found a holistic physician and a nurse who, you know, did all kinds of different, you know, vitamin C infusions and ozone treatments and cryotherapy.

And, but she didn't have a pediatric, she didn't have a pediatric nurse or physician just yet. And those were things in the works. And we just kept digging and digging, but everybody that we would find would retire. And it's, it's like, as if they were just running from. Something they were so startled and scared about.

And I think that that was the, that was the moment, you know, that we figured out there were other ways. And so we, you know, we changed our eating habits and we did things. [01:00:00] Behind people's backs and behind closed doors that weren't wrong. They just weren't FDA approved, but I didn't care about anything at that moment.

I had to keep my daughter alive and we had to get out of there and we had to figure out what life we were going to live and what boundaries we were going to also set with the hospital and the physicians and family. Family was huge. Having to set those boundaries of, and I had to set them, you know, I know what's right for her.

I'm in here with her. Fighting like a warrior and everybody else was outside. They weren't in there. So I think at that moment, I really realized that I was able to be this warrior for her and, you know just trying to find other things and really pushing people to give us some, you know, some different.

And I remember pushing our holistic nurse, you know, you, you find a pediatric nurse, you find them and I will [01:01:00] bring, you know, tons of patients to you, you know, we'll, we'll figure this out and let's research together. You know, what does this look like? So, my 6 rounds of chemotherapy and I think that was the moment that.

I just wanted to die. I think watching her go through that and almost be killed by the chemotherapy and then bullied by the doctors and bullied by the hospital. And it was, it was really interesting. We found some loopholes, we found all kinds of things, you know, a lot of things we can't talk about.

And I didn't talk about it in the book. You know, it's just, Some things you have to do that others may not understand, but those are the boundaries that you have to put up. Yeah. And for those, some people don't understand because they've never been through it and that's a blessing. But the way I look at the world is if it's not a moral, it means if it doesn't bother God, I could care less about the law.

And 90 percent of the law, you know, they have good intentions, but there's some that's just corrupt. You have a [01:02:00] trillion dollar multi. Yeah. Industry and the healthcare within America alone. And the fact is the system, it's a system, the system is set up to keep people sick so they keep paying money. And that's the fact.

And I don't care who likes me or hates me. It's a truth. I just, I'm sure you're going to finish your story, but I just had another friend who was sick for months. He went to Thailand, 500 for an entire day of every test you can imagine, came out with a solution in one day after being sick in the American establishment for months and they told him there's nothing he could do.

Within three days of their treatment, he was better. So it's just insane, but I had a tumor in my head and I'm not going to go into my whole story, but just, you know, same thing. I'm going through, I'm having surgeries there after surgery and radiation therapy. And at the end of the day, I changed my diet, cut out all dairy, all sugar, took some [01:03:00] herbs.

I didn't know anything about essential oils back then, but I know how powerful they are now. And praise the Lord, I'm happy and fat and 46 years old, right? So, so now you're doing things that are absolutely right for your daughter. Screw medical and the law. Where does your life go from there, Amy? Yeah. And there's a couple of things that I want to touch on too.

And I don't want people to feel scared about pushing back because you have the right to say, no, I'm not going to do that. And why are you doing that? And continually saying why I pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed every single day. And I found out some things that. You know, others had complained about and others had tried to stand up for themselves, but the hospital wouldn't listen.

But once I did and said that I would, you know, I would not stop until I took that hospital to its knees and broke it. Did they even listen? So it is okay to push back and it is okay to think that [01:04:00] there, you know, are other, other ways. And let me take it a step further. You don't have to say it, but I think the right thing is to push back because if you have the strength and the ability and the knowledge to push back for every one person who can, there's 10, 000 who can't or afraid to.

So I'm all about push and either succeed or die. That's it. Like, kill me, or let's get this done right, because we're going to help all the people after us. And that's what you did, and who knows how many people you helped. Back then, they're like, oh, I'm sure, not to be mean, but I'm sure, like, oh, that lady's a nightmare.

Or there's the mama clause, right? But really, you're just fighting for what should be already. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I didn't hold anything back. I mean, there were points where I was screaming at the top of my lungs up and down the hallway outside of radiology saying there's no one in this entire hospital who cares.

And, you know, I wasn't arrested. I wasn't taken out of the hospital. But, you know, it's just you get to these anger points and then you have to figure out what you're going to [01:05:00] do. So we did, we found the essential oils and really just found some powerful people that, you know, I can honestly say at that point, you know, almost 10 years ago, they kind of sort of lived underground.

Like you just didn't know about them. You know, a lot more about them now, holistic, alternative, and I hate saying the word alternative, holistic, more natural, letting the body heal, finding ways that the body can be the powerhouse that it's supposed to be. There are certain medications and certain things that are absolutely necessary.

I got really sick. I, I ended up, I had two sinus surgeries and ended up after my second one getting really, really sick. I got staff in the hospital when I got out, and I had a black mold and fungus staff infection that went through my bloodstream. It almost killed me. I saw numerous infectious disease doctors, and they, they all wrote me off.

They're like, I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do for you. And then their final [01:06:00] ditch was we can put a pick line in you admit you to the hospital and just pump you as full of everything that we can possibly find. And I said, but you've already killed my system. You gave me 12 or 16 of the strongest antibiotics over the last umpteen years.

Because I think I just had neglected myself and I said, what are you going to do? What, what, what is your alternative? And they didn't know. And I remember my husband coming home that day. He found the alternative holistic nurse and she did the ozone treatments and the cryotherapy and all kinds of cool stuff.

And he, he said, what do you have to lose? I said, nothing, I've got nothing to lose. They're either going to kill me in that hospital, or I can try something new and six months. I did ozone treatments, infusions, all kinds of stuff. I did anything that she told me to do and I tested negative 3 times for staff.

The doctors told me that staph would live inside my body my [01:07:00] entire life, and it would rear its ugly head if it didn't kill me sooner versus later. And I went back and told those doctors exactly what I thought. I threw stacks of clinical data onto their desk. I told one of the infectious disease doctors that if his hallway was a slightly wider, I'd be doing cartwheels up and down it, because that's how great I felt.

And only one listened to me and said, whatever you're doing, keep doing it. It's obviously working and it's amazing, but I don't have any idea of what you're talking about. I've never heard of anything. You know, like that. And everybody else called it voodoo and told me that I needed to stop doing it immediately.

It wasn't FDA approved. So that just kind of spurred me forward even more. Yeah. Cause the FDA is so reliable, right? Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that's, that's extreme sarcasm for people who aren't in the US. Everything that's FDA approved will kill you. Yeah. It's, it's FDA stands for just, no, I'm not gonna say it.

I'm gonna get censored again. No, I mean, it's just corruption. It's, it's like [01:08:00] communism on paper. It sounds good, but in reality it never works. The FDA is just a bunch of criminals and corruption to get things approved. But, with you going to the holistic doctor and finding alternatives and saying, you know, what are your husband's a hundred percent, right?

Thank God he supported you. What do you have to lose? You're dying anyways. But for you, for me, for how many of our listeners out there who've gone through similar stuff, you go back to the doctor who didn't believe and you say, Hey, listen, I'm better. Look, you know, what blows my mind is, you know, we used to say it was a medical practice.

And now everywhere you go, it's a medical profession. Yeah, before doctors cared about getting people better and now they're just in a grind. Some of the doctors are, you know, tying people, but they're just put through the meat grinder. Yeah. And, for you to go to a doctor and say, look, you told me I was going to die.

I'm alive. Here's my test results. This is what I did. [01:09:00] What kind of human wouldn't start wanting to implement that with their other patients, but they don't because they're in fear to lose their job for money. It really comes down to money and it's sad. So let's get back. So you are sick. You're better, but let's go back to your little baby girl.

So you're, you're, you're doing these alternative treatments. You're doing what it takes. Win, lose, or draw. It's better to, to, it's better to be wrong than to die with a regret, you know, or, you know, to, to, to live off somebody else's standards and opinions. That's failed me. That's failed you. It's failed everybody in life.

It's only God's opinion and yours that counts. So Amy, what do you and your husband do to get your little girl well? Yeah. I, I just kept fighting. I mean, we kept landing back in the hospital over and over again. And, we, we had to go in for unfortunately a, an ultrasound and then to do a liver biopsy and then the doctors ended up nicking the corner [01:10:00] of the liver and they, they, Absolutely just, you know, ruined the bile duct.

It caved in, scarred. And they told us that, you know, it would probably never, never heal itself. The, the doctor told us in 30 some years of him practicing, there had never been a bile duct that had ever reopened, like ever. He said, you know, you just need to buckle down, gear up. She's going to have to have another transplant.

Like things are bad. And it was their fault. I mean, it was absolutely 100 percent their fault. And. Yeah. I knew that we shouldn't have done it, but we did. And that was the point where we started all the essential oils. We were changing their diets. I almost got into a fist fight, I think, with the nutritionist in the hospital, because they were just, they feed everybody crap.

And what I had found out is they dropped one of their healthiest vendors that supplied the whole hospital with healthy food, fresh meats. Much, much better quality. They dropped it, dropped everything. All the nurses were angry. I mean, and I had lots of thorough conversations. I mean, [01:11:00] as we move forward and me putting it, you know, all of this in writing, you'll just like your jaw will just drop to the ground reading like all of these things, all these conversations with these nurses, I just really wanted to pick everybody's brain and.

What would make someone make that decision? You're, you're wanting to keep people healthy. You're needing to feed nurses and doctors all day long. Don't you want to feed them healthy foods? And I mean, I, I called upper management. They had to come down late one evening. It was like 1030 at night. And I said, either she leaves or, or I'll get my attorney, you know, what are you going to do for me?

And I just was so tired of them telling us what to do, but then wanting to help us, but then feeding us crap, 16 medications, all these. Things that were going wrong. I mean, there story after story after story to where you're like, oh my goodness. Like, I mean the one two punch every time I turned around.

Yeah. And so, and I do wanna stop right there too for our listeners. 'cause you've experienced this. I've experienced this and sadly, many of our listeners have experienced [01:12:00] this. But for some people listening, I know they're thinking, well, they did it to save money. It's a huge cost difference. No many times the decisions for care.

that you'd think are a massive financial difference are pennies and you have some horrible humans in the executive offices looking to make minor percentage increases seriously like negligible and they're willing to sacrifice the health and well being of people for a minor profit, even if it was a major profit, it's wrong, but they're doing it for pennies and they have no conscience about it.

So what I'm so glad you fought this. So keep going in your story. I don't mean to cut you off, but this is something we need to expose it. It lends itself into kind of then what happened later. So I demanded that they have, you know, all the fresh vegetables, chicken, fish, every everything that I wanted. [01:13:00] And that they would, you know, supply it.

So they would go to the store almost every single day and buy exactly what we wanted. Come back, cook it. We had our own menu. I mean. And I wasn't going to let down. And unfortunately, unfortunately, you have to say the word attorney for them to start listening to you. And it's so sad that they're not worried about our health or our wellbeing or anything.

And the nutritionist was, she was very unhealthy. She was very overweight. She could have cared less about anybody. And that, I mean, the moment she walked in the room, I mean, I was, I was ticked off. And so it didn't lend itself for a good evening, but it did turn out well. So I was very just startled and very saddened.

All the nurses were so sad that their, their healthy food had gone away and the choices that they were left with. And of course they go down and they find something in that unhealthy environment to eat that's the least. Of, you know, it's the healthiest of the [01:14:00] unhealthy, you know, do you want a corndog or mac and cheese, corndog or mac and cheese?

Yep. What kind of pizza do you want today? It was just, it was really, really sad. So I knew that, you know, they weren't, they weren't there for us at all. And then later on in my story, very recently, as I'm doing all my research for my book and everything. I've been found out, you know, they no longer have any resources for parents.

No, no resources whatsoever. No mentors, no resources, no way to help you. They have absolutely nothing. I called recently and was just, you know, kind of nosing around. And I said, why? I said, why don't you have anything? Oh, well, you know, after COVID, you know, we just, we didn't reinstate any of those resources.

And I wanted to say no, because it doesn't make you any money. That's why you didn't reinstate those resources. Then you have to pay someone to give those resources to someone that doesn't make you any money. That person who they fired, you know, very soon into our stay was a mentor that. [01:15:00] I mean, that person, you know, gave resources to people.

She didn't make the hospital any money. So, you know, they did away with these jobs that, you know, were very, very needed for these scared, fearful parents that didn't know what to do or where to go unless they had their own resources. So. It's, it's, it's deep. It's really, really deep on, on where the hospitals will cut their costs.

So, so let's go, you and I, and it's important, but let's get back to your daughter and the healing because both of us, I can feel I was getting fired up on the inside and hopefully our listeners are too. But let's get back to your story and the journey and what happened. Lots and lots of different steps and stages, but the one cool thing is after we started doing the essential oils Matt, my daughter had to have a stent change every single 4 weeks.

We'd go into the hospital stent change. They were very negative, you know, it would never get any better and we just, we're going to have to buckle up and she'd have to have another [01:16:00] transplant. I mean, I didn't think there was any way that I was going to be able to take that take, you know, six more rounds of chemotherapy or that about killed us anyway, but to watch her go through everything that she had been for, you know, the first year and a half and never leaving that hospital.

We started using the essential oils and looking up all kinds of just different ways that we could open up the bile duct and what we could do for cancer and things that we could do. And we started feeding her the drops of essential oil and diffusing them into the air and putting them in capsules and rubbing them on her liver and especially the 1 that opened up the bile duct.

And I, I took her in every 4 weeks to get the stent change and I'd sit in the cafeteria and on the 12th time that we went in for the stent change, the doctor walked out. And once again, I see this like sheet white look on his face and I thought, Oh my [01:17:00] God, you know, they've killed her. Like something really bad has happened.

And he sat down and said in his 30 some years of being in the hospital and doing what he does, he's never once seen a bile duct ever open before, but her bile duct was completely open, completely scar free. And it looked Perfect. Perfect blood flow. Everything was perfect. And I said, do me one favor. And I said, if you'll do just anything for me, I said, don't give up.

Just. Don't tell that next person or the next person that they have absolutely no, I said, just do that for me, you know, just give people hope if there's anything that you could do in your day, try to give them a little bit of hope at all, just encouragement. And he got up, walked away, and I never saw him again.

And so after that, we refuse to do any, liver [01:18:00] biopsies. I told them to call me when they had a, a blood draw that would test the same levels that that liver biopsy would do. I told them to call me and, you know, we continued pushing back and fighting. But we were out, you know, we got out after several years, we were able to make it better, but we really just changed our whole life.

We changed our environment, you know, candles. We got our house fully cleaned. We ripped out all the carpet. We did everything, you know, to cut down on what we could to, you know, any toxins, pollutants. We started seeing a really amazing functional medicine physician here in St. Louis and just continuing on what we were doing.

Our holistic physician finally got a pediatric physician that does the low dose ozone, vitamin C infusions, cryotherapy. Very quickly, she opened four offices in four different states and she's so busy. It's, it's just mesmerizing. So we were really happy to, [01:19:00] to really be on that, that path. And that was just a cool part of it for me.

But I think. I, I always had just some demons inside of me that I was still having to deal with, because one, I didn't really deal with anything going through all of that because I didn't have time. Like, we were running at rocket speed, dealing with what people probably imagine dealing with in like 10 people's lifetimes, and we were dealing with it in a very short period of time, and I think that I just didn't give my, myself the grace.

And I didn't, certainly didn't give myself the personal care because I got so sick. And I was just always pouring, you know, everything into our family and keeping, you know, our marriage together and keeping my daughter well, but it was always in the back of my mind of those two other lingering cancers are coming.

Like her, she has a really rare genetic cancer gene. We were told that one weekend. So after we were given, you know, just the blow of, of [01:20:00] news and we got out. It wasn't, it was never going to be over. You know, we were told she has two more cancers. One would hit her between age 13 and 17. And the other one would be right around age 47.

And it was, it was. Pretty consistent to the clinical data, but the rare gene that she has isn't studied well. It's never been studied well. Even now, almost 10 years back, they've done no more data, no more studying on this gene. So it's almost as if they just have given up. So I can tell you right here, it's rare.

So there's not money in the research. I mean, that's, I'm not trying to be cruel, but that's the facts. There's no money in the research. Tons of things can be cured right now. There's not money in it, so they don't do it. Yeah, I had heard there was a cure in Europe many, many years back when I started researching with some different physicians and they said, they'll never bring it to the United States.

It will never get here. And so we just started pushing back a little more, but that was always lingering in my head. And I think this internal fight with these [01:21:00] demons and having to deal with that hospital and what I went through, and then knowing that there were additional cancers. I was a wreck. I mean, I was an absolute wreck, but no one would have known it.

I have won President's Club with every company I've been with. I've been at the top of the entire company. You would never know that my life wasn't perfect, but there was just this storm inside of me that was, that was probably going to kill me. And I attempted suicide three times. And I really went to a bad place, a really, really dark place.

And I couldn't figure out. My faith, I couldn't figure out my purpose. I couldn't figure out why I was, you know, just. Unable to be or find calmness and I, I, I had the ability, you know, every single morning to take my daughter to, to school. We, we took her out [01:22:00] almost 5 years ago from public school and put her in a small Christian Academy.

And that was one of the best decisions we ever made. We took our son out a couple of years ago and put him in a, in a larger private academy, Christian Academy. And so, you know, that was one of the things that was just amazing, but I still just left very empty with these demons inside of me and about a little over a year ago, almost a year and a half ago, it was a morning that I was driving my daughter to school and our church that we did not.

go to regularly because I just couldn't bring myself to go inside any longer. I just, I didn't know what was happening within me. And I drove my car up to the top parking lot and I walked myself inside and asked for one of the pastors and walked into the chapel. And I think I cried for about three hours.

And that day I just completely surrendered everything, surrendered my entire life [01:23:00] to God. And. I don't think I had ever found God until that day. I had prayed every day in the hospital, but I can't, I still can't put my finger on my relationship of, of what my relationship was those nine years, my relationship with God during, you know, my younger years with my parents was very confusing.

You know, it was just always very confusing. So I think that moment was monumental. And. I couldn't get this just feeling out of my mind that I had to walk back through the last nine years of my life. And I was going to have to gut myself and I was going to have to have, I think, just steel armor around me to be able to go back through what I went through for nine years.

And I called one of my friends, Justin Donald. He's very successful, lives in Austin, Texas now. Just, [01:24:00] Multimillionaire. I'm so happy for him. Just great guy. Just cool, cool guy. And pulled him up. I hadn't talked to him in a while. And I said, I have to write a book. God is telling me I have to write a book.

And I swear I'm going crazy. If I tell my husband that I'm hearing voices that I have to write a book, he's going to put me into, you know, a funny farm. And so we really just talked it through. He sent me a business card about a week later and he said, I've been on this retreat, but I think I have somebody for you.

Sent me a card and it was this faith driven, faith based publishing company. And that was all she wrote. I started the process of writing my book. Got a ghostwriter, bittersweet, an absolute bittersweet last year of my life. Wrote my book. It really just dives into everything we've talked to and so much more.

And there were things that I never even remember it happened that, that I [01:25:00] acknowledged in this book that were so healing, but also very, very scary to write. And so I think for me, It was just being able to get my feelings out on paper, but then it was a whole lot more. So I created a group called Advocacy and Hope.

And that is, that is my group on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, you name it. And I launched a podcast that's also called Advocacy and Hope. And what my goal has really been over the last several months is I really did just create a place where anybody can come. At first it was any, any families that had children with, you know, immense medical challenges.

And then I kind of opened it up to those families, but also those that really had a passion and compassion for families with these children. And then I opened it up even further and just [01:26:00] said, you know what, we just need to be in an organization and a world of. You know, advocating for ourselves, for others, and giving hope.

And I hope you read my story and find something from it and find some different threads. And then now I've kind of gone a step further to organizing some groups for some teens and young adults to, you know, prepare for life and life's challenges and, you know, how to, how to advocate and what that looks like, and just sheer preparation, because it's not.

When you're going to go through, or if you're going to go through something, it's, it's when, and, you know, how, how will that look for you? After our daughter was diagnosed, I changed my entire life of if this happens again, and then it was when this happens again. We will be financially stable. I won't have to do XYZ again.

I will prepare this way different. I will prepare in my faith, [01:27:00] my financial ability, my personal relationship, everything I just put out, sort of putting out on paper of when that next time came, how I would be prepared so much better. And I just really want to share that with a lot of people now. That's fantastic.

And then just to summarize. So you had the health issues and now it's completely healed up? Completely. Completely. I used to be sick 10 months out of the year. I mean, like deathly sick with respiratory infections. Then the staff, it was absolutely horrible. And you know, I might get a little sniffle or a little cough maybe twice a year now.

I mean, I've come from the depths, you know, the valley of death along with my daughter to, we're both extremely, extremely healthy. And then, yeah, so as I say, now, where's your daughter? How old is she now? What's her health status? She's 13 and she is extremely healthy. She had strep earlier in, [01:28:00] in the week, and that was the first time she's been sick in about four and a half years, like we have kept her as healthy as possible, but we have also.

demanded for the exit strategies of all of those drugs that she was on. I didn't stop until we got an exit strategy for almost every single one of those drugs. Now, I can honestly tell you that was a really, really difficult place, but I do wholeheartedly believe. She, she's doing so much better being off of them and being on just some better supplements and functional medicine.

And she's on essential oils every single day, just a totally different diet, but she's great. And I know that that has to do with God, but it also has to do with, you know, a hand in us really jumping in and just a different lifestyle. Yeah, well, God creates the resources and God gives the knowledge of how to apply them.

So it's all God, but then we still have to do our part. So a hundred percent. [01:29:00] So let me ask you a question. There is products out there all over the world where you can say, these are. Widgets, you know, these are sprockets and there's different qualities and classes and there's all sorts of variations and there's some that are just fake imposters, like it's like, you know, a box of cereal has nothing real in it.

Yet the FDA will put FDA puts it higher on the food chart and health than state. Okay. Yeah. FDA is not corrupt. Right. But when it comes to essential oils, if you don't mind sharing, what brand do you and your family use, do you typically recommend? Young Living is what we have loved. Now, there are some brands that are just about as good, but Young Living has probably been what we find as the highest quality.

We really, really love them. So, I mean, that's what we've, we've stuck with. Yeah, Young Living is what I'm, I personally use as well. And friends of mine use it and have all good [01:30:00] experience. And there's a lot of oils out there. I'm not putting any down, but I also know there's a lot of fake oils out there that you get.

It's almost as bad as a pharmaceutical because it's junk. Well, good. So. What's going on now? Do you have other children? Yeah. So our, our son is almost 17. Yep. He, I don't think I told you, he did not have the rare genetic gene and neither did my husband nor I. So the almost a hundred percent guarantee that it was supposed to be passed down from the parents was not true.

And I think that the audience needs to know that of. Something happened. There was a trigger. We just have to make her as healthy as possible, get her gut healthy, get everything as healthy as possible to be able to, you know, make sure that those triggers aren't, aren't there. But it was. It's really interesting to find out that, that my husband nor I passed along this genetic gene that was like [01:31:00] guaranteed.

I mean, that's, it was pretty much passed down. Yeah. And then when it is passed down, families and people have huge amounts of guilt. It's not your fault. It's just how things went. So. Your son's good. You're good. Your daughter's good. Your husband's doing good. So basically, between your birth and today, is there anything we miss in your life story, Amy, that you want to cover?

If not, let's transition to where are you today and where are you heading next, so we can help you get there. Yeah. I mean, I've, I've shared a lot. I think those main points that really, I think made me the person that I am. Everything that I went through, but I can honestly say too, a really cool part of this is I've really asked for people to, you know, reach out.

I mean, join my Facebook group and share their stories, reach out to me, share their stories. You know, I've got resources. I'm gathering tons of resources for people to be able to have, but share your story and don't be sad about sharing it [01:32:00] because it's, it's so much more healing. And bittersweet than, than you'll know.

And I think one of the things that people really need to know is that I've never stopped thinking about everybody that, that I met in the hospital, all of those families, all of those children that, that didn't have parents with them. There were so many children that honest to goodness, they were left alone at night, they were left alone.

The nurses were left, they're trying to take care of them. They didn't have anybody. And I met so many parents. I had the chance to kind of be the, one of the nurses advocates when, you know, newbies would come into the hospital, you know, I'd get to share hope with them. That was another thing that I, that I didn't share with you.

I think God allows us to see things that we would have never imagined. Very early on, it was four weeks after we were admitted, and it was the day that we were leaving, four weeks [01:33:00] later. I hadn't seen the outside in four weeks. And we were quarantined to our room. Like, we couldn't leave. And one of the nurses asked me if I would talk to one of the mothers that had just been admitted.

Her daughter had cancer and they found a lump underneath her daughter's arm. Her daughter was about my daughter's age, about three or four. And she was just sobbing, just absolutely sobbing. And I remember at that moment, I told the nurse, I said, how, what would I have to share to anybody? I've been in the valley of death for four weeks.

I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen. Our life is just over. And what in the world could I share with anybody? And she said, I just need you to tell her that it's going to be okay. And look at you, you're, you're going home and it's going to be okay. And I remember we were almost to the elevator.

The elevators were right on our right. All we had to do was just turn right and get into the elevators. But I didn't. I, you [01:34:00] know, went left and we went in, I went and talked to this mother. And of course her daughter was all hooked up on the wires. And, you know, it was just horrific seeing her sob, like she was sobbing.

But for some reason I was able to calm her down. And I think in that moment, I found something inside myself that I didn't know was there. And I ended up having the opportunity to speak with a lot of parents and a lot of mothers that were brought in with their children. I remember that day when standing in their shoes and I just, I think it healed me to be able to say anything, just to say something to these families.

And so now I've really kind of put a lot of my effort into, you know, looking back at these families and knowing that, you know, they're not alone. They're absolutely not alone. And just really trying to find some different resources. Because one of the things you will find is some of the bigger hospitals do have some great resources, but you do have to be a patient [01:35:00] there.

They will not share any of their resources with anybody else. No one. And a lot of the hospitals now have dropped all of their resources. There is nothing for families. So you really just have to be Able to, you know, find where those resources are located, but I can tell you, it's not easy. Yeah. And we've covered a lot today, Amy.

Thank you so much for your story and sharing and your transparency and, a lot for us to think about, reflect on, apply to our lives. But when we start off this show, I think it's awesome how you talked about how one thing that people are guaranteed is they're going to learn how to conquer their deepest fears.

And even though everything you went through is amazing. It really came down to your relationship with God. That moment where you finally, you didn't hold on to one percent. You just finally gave it all to God and said, I can't do this, help me. And that's where your life changed. Am I wrong? Or was that the conquering your deepest fear?[01:36:00]

Yep. Yeah. That was absolutely my conquering of all the fear. And what I realized was looking back The answers that I thought I knew, I was like, Oh, you know, I just kind of go in the wrong direction and I found the right, the right idea. I found the right answer. It just was a gut feeling. It was never a gut feeling.

It was God. I mean, it was God the entire time. It was what God wanted me to find. It was that appropriate time to put whatever in front of me to then say, here's another clue. Now what? Here's another, you know, piece of my love. Now, what? Like we were given there, there's a reason why we aren't given everything at the moment that we wanted.

I wanted that guidebook in the very beginning. I remember getting on my hand, my knees and putting my hands on the chair in the corner of the hospital room and begging God. To just let me take her place and to please give me just this magical guide, just give [01:37:00] me every piece of every answer that I need and I will go and I will put it in to action because that's how I am, you know, you just give me all the information, the data, the clinical data from my job and I just go do it and I don't really have to be bothered and I think I look back now and God was trying to teach me and, and taught me something so valuable about myself.

That I never even knew. Like, I have a calmness about me today that I've never had in 37 years of my entire life. I have a different view and a different perspective, but it was all because of that moment of surrendering to God. And saying, I can't do this on my own and I needed something. I don't know how many people can honestly say out there that they have thought about suicide or had attempts or whatever, you know, I've had people.

Now through this process going, well, you don't look like somebody who would, you know, want to commit suicide. It comes in all shapes, [01:38:00] colors, sizes. I mean, we don't know what that person next to us is going through. And I think that that's one of the biggest messages I've wanted to really portray out there is that just kindness and hope and encouragement.

Because there's, there's a lot of things that are going on behind closed doors, but yeah, God was. God saved me. God saved me from myself. Amen. Does anybody who wants it is there. So thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that with us today, Amy. Now, if a listener wants to get ahold of you, we're going to put links to everything in the show notes, but for those listening and driving, what's the easiest way for people to reach you?

Yeah. So you can check out my landing page. It's amypost. com. So it's A M Y P O S T. com. It's a great place to read about me. Kind of read about the book the experiences. I've got the first chapter on there. And then also you can find me on [01:39:00] Facebook at Advocacy and Hope. That's the name of the group. You just type it in.

It'll pop right up as well as YouTube, Apple, Spotify. My, my group is my podcast is Advocacy and Hope. And if they want to actually purchase a book, is it best your website, Amazon, Barnes and Noble? What's the best place to get your book? Yeah, so if you go to amypost. com, there is a link on there to pre order it.

It'll send you right to Amazon, but you can order it on any major retailer. You can Walmart, Target, Barnes Noble, most of the big bookstores, but Amazon is also one of the largest. And like I said, my landing page will take you straight there. Today, we're recording this in February of 2024. So who knows when people are going to be listening?

When is the book due out for people listening as soon as this releases? Yeah. So it is pre launched now, so you can pre order it and then [01:40:00] it will start shipping out May 7th. May 7th. And what's the formal title of the book? Out of the Gray, Into the Light, A Mother's Memoir. Yeah, we talked about it a thousand times.

Say it one more time. Out of the Gray, Into the Light, A Mother's Memoir. Alright, so ladies and gentlemen, put that on your shopping list with Amazon, the to do list. Check out Amy's website, connect with her. I know there's a lot of topics that especially the ladies across the world, you can connect with Amy and continue the conversation.

Gentlemen, ladies, whoever you are, if Amy or I can help you in any way, please let us know. If not, Amy, we really appreciate you being here today. Thank you so much. Yeah, David. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I cannot tell you how exciting this was. And I just, my, my biggest thing to leave everybody with is.

You know, just have hope, you know, there, there is hope at the end of the tunnel. There is light at the end of the [01:41:00] tunnel. You just have to be still and listen to God, you know, because God is there for you. You're never alone. Amen. And I don't think there's a better way we can leave this episode with those words.

So God is always there. We're never alone. Thank you, Amy. And thank you, David. Yes, to our listeners, we love you. We hope to hear from you soon. Let Amy and I know, send some feedback of how this episode's helped you. If you still need more help, again, reach out to us, check out the show notes, get ahold of Amy and go to our website.

And, when you're moving through life. I think Amy's story is, our slogan, don't just listen to great content, but do it, repeat the good each day so you can have a great life in this world, but most importantly, an attorney to come. But Amy's story is the perfect example of the balance. She was a high end, she is a high end achiever.

She's a go, go, go kind of human, but without God, life means nothing and [01:42:00] it's short. Attorneys, attorney forever, forever and ever and ever. This life, 70, 80 years on average, it's short. It's a speck of sand in the universe. So make sure that you have your relationship with God settled first. And again, reach out to Amy, reach out to myself.

If you're going to grab your Bible, start in John and just start reading and praying, but we love you. We wish you only the best. We'll see you in the next episode.

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