Meet Annie Frazier.
Annie Frazier is a wife and mother of three with a career in early childhood education. She had been active in the past, but as her body changed, she needed help to improve her overall wellness. During an appointment, her doctor referred Annie to participate in the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP).
Annie was trepidatious about starting with her DPP cohort. She worried about her ability to commit and her complicated relationship with food. However, she immediately liked the DPP program. “The difference between other health and wellness programs and DPP is that other programs jump into exercise and food. With this program, so many other wellness aspects were talked about [including] being socially active, connecting with people, and finding the things that fill our souls on hard days.”
Eventually, Annie approached food and movement feeling more empowered. After ten months of participating in an individualized plan, 1:1 coaching, and confidential reporting, things were going well. Annie started to see and feel improvements.
But during that time, Annie developed a cough that wouldn’t go away. She was diagnosed with a large teratoma tumor in her chest, located between her lungs and attached to her heart. She was admitted to the hospital immediately. It took 12 days for a team of experts to create a plan to remove it. None of them had ever seen a tumor of this kind and size in this location.
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“The Diabetes Prevention Program helped me during the 12 days before surgery because I had a lot of confidence from the new things I had learned. I had started changing how I felt about myself and begun healing from the inside.”
The operation was extensive, lasting more than 10 hours. But Annie survived. And because of the positive changes she had made in her health, she avoided many possible complications. Through her work with DPP, she lowered her cholesterol and A1C and was no longer pre-diabetic. Her body was whole, and her mindset was positive.
Surviving the surgery gave Annie a new outlook on life. Her body had shown up for her and was strong. No longer did the number on the scale seem to matter so much. She was alive.
“I knew there was a long road ahead, but I also knew that I could do it because of the tools that I had learned in the Diabetes Prevention Program and this new idea of what wellness looks like.”
In recovery, Annie has slowly progressed from walking a few steps with a cane to riding bikes with her family. She treats her body with respect, meditates often, and enjoys walks in nature. Armed with the lessons from DPP and surrounded by the people she loves, Annie now looks joyfully toward the future.
