JAN. 29-FEB. 4, 2024 Local women share their journey to the top of their professions and the challenges and triumphs they faced along the way. They’re rewriting the script on success and there’s no ceiling. Jamie Dopp is my guest this week. She’s the manager of marketing and communications for White River Valley Electric Cooperative Inc. This conversation takes us out of the office and on the journey to receiving a rare diagnosis for her daughter, Lillie. Five years ago, the daughter she described as vibrant and outgoing became unable to keep food down. Diagnoses of eating disorders and failure to thrive were tossed around, but Jamie says she knew something was being missed. She became determined to find answers, fueled by sheer will and the strength of her own mom’s example. Jamie says she found her voice and learned to trust her intuition as she researched how to help her daughter. The yearslong journey resulted in a diagnosis just .013% of people will ever hear. In this conversation, Jamie talks about the volunteer experiences that taught her to hold on to hope and how she’s committed to self-care in the next season of life. Below is an excerpt from the start of our conversation. —Christine Temple, Executive Editor Christine Temple: I want to start by going back five years ago to the start of your daughter’s symptoms. Can you tell me what that looked like and what it was like to try to find out what was going on with her? Jamie Dopp: When she first got sick, it seemed like she just had a virus or some kind of common cold. She woke up in February 2019 and wasn’t holding food, and so we did what any parent would do – we took her to the doctor and got that diagnosis: It’s a virus; it will go away in a day or two. But a day or two came, and she was still not holding food at all. We took her back and they are like, well, it might be acid reflux. After about a month and a half, we went to the doctor and they were once again trying to prescribe her with another acid reflux medicine. Maybe this was the first time I found my voice in her story, but I just said I’m not leaving here today with another prescription. Please, get her to a GI doctor. Something is very, very wrong. We couldn’t get in for a couple months to the GI doctor, but when we did, the questioning he was asking her was: How old are you? What kind of grades do you make? She answered: I’m 13, make straight As. And then he said, do you have a lot of friends? And she said, yes. And he turned to me and he said, I think your daughter has an eating disorder. I stared at him and I said, you’re saying this before you run one test on her? It really sunk in that this was going to be a battle that we were going to fight to get help for her. Temple: In this journey, you’re really having to advocate for her and be her voice to a medical institution. Did you feel comfortable doing that and saying, “This is what she needs; can you try something else? I’m not sure this is right.” Dopp: In the beginning, no, I was not comfortable at all. It’s not in my personality to argue or disagree, especially with someone who went to school to learn medical. My degree is in marketing. I know nothing about the body. That led me on a path to just start researching and trying to figure out on our own what was happening. Tests were coming back often showing nothing was wrong with her, and so that was frustrating when you know that something is seriously wrong and nothing is supporting that. We were lucky in her journey to meet a lot of people that helped her along the way. A friend of mine led me to meet Laura Daily, who’s a real estate agent, and she had had similar issues as a child. Her gallbladder had really gone bad and had kept her from eating. I went back to Lillie’s pediatrician and said we’re not getting anywhere with the GI doctor. Can you just help us? She supported that and ordered the scan, and it showed Lillie’s gallbladder was not functioning, and so we had her gallbladder removed. We thought that that would be the end. The gallbladder is out, life is going to be great, and we can move on and put that behind us. But it wasn’t as simple as that. Her story took a lot longer to get to the final destination that we’re at now. LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE: SBJ.net/NoCeiling or wherever you find your podcasts UP NEXT: Heather Lyons-Burney Faith Community Health and My Neighbor’s Charitable Pharmacy JAMIE DOPP White River Valley Electric Cooperative Inc. TAWNIE WILSON PRESENTED BY Leadership Spotlight I firmly believe that everyone can be a leader, no matter where they sit or what their title is. It happens through setting an example for those around you by maintaining high standards for your own work and the treatment of others, by being open to hearing and incorporating feedback, generating and contributing new ideas, and always, always continuing to learn. AmericanNational.com Lelia Starr Director, Enterprise Threat & Vulnerability Management SPRINGFIELD BUSINESS JOURNAL · 9
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