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April True, True Wellness
I thought I was at the end, but God was just getting started.
I grew up on a dairy farm in the Conway/Morgan area, tiny little place. We worked hard, lived off the land, played in the woods, fished in the ponds, and ate out of the garden. That was life. I thought everyone had milk cows. Farming was everywhere back then. It’s not like that anymore.
We left the farm in the middle of my junior year and moved to Lebanon. I came here kicking and screaming. I’d just lost my grandpa, who I was so close to, and I didn’t want to be in town. Lebanon felt huge and overwhelming. I was angry, bitter, and grieving. I acted out. Cut class. Showed up when I felt like it. I was intelligent, but I didn’t want to be here. I was the middle child, raised between two brothers, and I didn’t know what to do with all the pain I was carrying.
Then I met Danny.
I was seventeen. He showed me grace when I was just a punk teenager. We fell in love fast, drag racing, working hard, figuring out life together. I never wanted to go away to college. That wasn’t my dream. I just wanted to build something real. And when I was young, I’d always thought I might go into the medical field. I didn’t know what exactly, but I wanted to help people. I wanted to take care of them.
Danny and I opened our first business together, a car wash, before we even got married. After we lost that, I went to Copeland and worked as a welder. Not what people expected, but I’m not your typical girl. I took business classes at night, thinking I’d get a degree and figure it out from there.
But when I held our first baby, I knew. I didn’t want to miss a second of it. They offered me more money to stay at work, but I walked away. I had time with my boys. I don’t regret that for anything.
Later, when they were in school, I thought maybe I’d go back and finish my business degree. Instead, I went into education. I became an academically at-risk para and loved it. I made lesson plans and helped kids one-on-one. It was exactly where I was meant to be.
Until I got sick.
At first, I thought I had the flu. I had a house full of boys for a birthday party and thought I’d caught something. But there was no fever. Just swelling, pain, exhaustion. I went to the doctor. Then another. And another. For years. Rheumatoid arthritis, they said. Autoimmune something. But no one really knew.
I started fading from my own life. I was in my thirties, but I felt like I was dying. I slept 18 to 20 hours a day. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t drive. My body hurt so badly I could’ve laid down in the middle of the road and gone to sleep. I was so disconnected from everything. I had no energy, no emotion, no desire to keep going. We went to specialists in St. Louis, Kansas City, even Mayo Clinic. Nothing helped.
Eventually, I couldn’t work. I couldn’t care for my family. Danny was doing everything, trying to hold us together. Our lives were turned upside down. I don’t remember parts of those years. We were under so much stress. I prayed every day, but I felt like I was slipping away.
They offered me a cancer infusion as a last resort. I did all the required bloodwork, and then they told me I was too unhealthy to even begin treatment. That was the moment something shifted. I had enough energy for the first time in years to get mad. Furious, really. I had done everything they told me. I took the medicine. I followed the rules. And I was still dying.
That was the window God gave me.
I believe that. That burst of anger, that little spark of life, was God waking me up. I said, “No more.” I refused to be defined by a diagnosis. I refused to live like that. I tapered off the medications, did the hard work of withdrawal, and told God, “If there’s something else out there, You’re going to have to show me. Because I’m done.”
That’s when Danny found Brooke, a kinesiologist. We prayed about it and went. I didn’t understand what she did, it wasn’t medicine, but I went. After the first visit, I came home and realized I had no pain from the knees down. For six and a half years, I hadn’t known what it was to not hurt. And suddenly, relief. Danny and I sat down and cried.
I kept going. And then I started thinking, maybe I could learn to do this. Just for myself. I started classes, learned everything I could, and somewhere along the way, God said, “You’re going to help other people.”
I said, “No. No, I’m not. This is weird. I’m going back to teach. That was the plan, God.”
But He said it again, even more firmly. “This is what you’re going to do.”
I listened.
The verses I’d clung to during those years of suffering, when I didn’t even have the energy to read my Bible, those verses are on the wall in my waiting room today. They got me through. And now I get to help people who feel like I did. People who look fine on the outside but are falling apart inside.
I became a traditional naturopath. A certified health and wellness coach. I studied kinesiology. I opened my first office downtown in 2020 in a little space across from the courthouse. Later, we moved into the building Danny’s parents owned. It grew into True Wellness. And I found my place.
I still don’t know how it all unfolded the way it did, only that it was never my plan. It was God’s. He had to stop me in my tracks to get me to see it. I never would have chosen this path. But now, I know it was meant for me.
Danny and I have been married for over 30 years. We’ve lived a lot of lives together. Built businesses, raised boys, worn a lot of hats. And one thing that’s always been constant for us is our love of downtowns. Old buildings, small businesses, walkable streets, they speak to us. We’ve visited them on road trips, wandered their shops, run our hands along stair rails that feel like history. I’ve always been drawn to that.
Lebanon’s downtown has changed so much in my lifetime. I remember when it was where people came to shop, to gather, to be part of something. Then I watched it empty out. Storefronts dark. Sidewalks quiet. It broke my heart. But in recent years, we’ve seen it come back to life. And Danny and I have poured ourselves into that revival. We’ve bought buildings, supported new businesses, cheered people on. We’ve gone to trainings, hosted meetings, stayed involved in the hard work of rebuilding something we believe in. Not because we had a grand plan. Just because we love it. I love seeing people walk into shops again, hearing music on the street, watching kids run down the sidewalk. It feels like hope. It feels like home.
I didn’t grow up here, but Lebanon is home. This is where I found my people. Where I found healing. Where I found purpose. Where God put me on the path He always meant for me to walk.
