America Tonight with Kate Delaney features Toni Chavis, the author of the book “The Diamond Born of Fortitude.”
In this interview, Kate Delaney interviews author Latonia Chavis-mom, wife, interior designer, business owner, veteran, and president of the local Chamber of Commerce. She’s a retired air force veteran who served for 22 years but woke up one day paralyzed.
The Diamond Born of Fortitude is an account of Toni’s journey through a childhood of domestic abuse, running from life, and returning to the scars it left behind. As a mother, your children go through the battle with you, and while as parents, we do our best to protect our children; the best thing a mom can do is to enlighten them, strengthen them so that they don’t repeat the cycle. I pray that anyone who reads this that has lived this life knows they did nothing wrong. Understand, you didn’t invite it, you did not deserve it; but you will come through it, with “the strength of the “Diamond” that you are!
How it all began
“It’s one of those things in the early stages of dealing with what I knew at that time, was fibromyalgia- nobody knew about it or how to treat it, or how to deal with it. I was on at least 27 medications per day, but now I’ve got myself down to two. Everyone has their daily routine- they get out of bed and go about their day- but this particular day, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t do anything. Finally, my husband came into the room at around twelve o clock that day, and he asked me if I was going to get up today, and all I could do was whisper and tell him I couldn’t move. A sense of panic crept over the room as he tried to help me sit up on the side of the bed, and I began to feel the blood flow through my body. He wanted to take me to the hospital, but I couldn’t go because I was still on active duty. All I could think at that time was that, if I let this thing were to take, it will be the end of my career.”
She visited the doctor the week after to have some nerve testing done. However, the doctor’s visit didn’t yield any clear explanations, even though there was a definite numbness. It certainly was a wakeup call for Toni that she had to do something different because her body was shutting down on her.
Toni had been in a traumatizing event in the military and was trying to deal with where she was at that point. At that particular moment, the military was considering taking her off of active duty, despite her 18 ½ years of service. She wasn’t about to let that happen.
Childhood domestic abuse
“By going through all of these things, it took me some time to realize that whatever I had been faced with in my childhood and adult life was a blessing to me. I started to realize how much strength I gained from watching my mother’s perseverance despite her health’s decline in her later years, seeing how she pushed through and soldiered on; it gave me the courage to do so myself. In the middle of a dramatic and traumatizing situation the way she was and how she overcame it, she was an inspiration to me. She did all of that to protect me.
We packed up and moved within a week, and I learned so much from that. She just regrouped and powered on..”
What Toni hopes for her readers to gain from her book
“At the end of the day, we’re all faced with challenges- we all go through something. We all have those things that just knock the wind out of our sails and take us off our feet. But you know what, I heard someone say it one time- ‘If you land on your back, as long as you’re looking up, that means you can get up.’ You get up, power through, you fight through and do whatever it takes. You can recover. You can pull through it. We all endure losses in our lives, losing people that we love. That’s what prompted me to write the book.”
For more information about Toni Chavis’“The Diamond Born of Fortitude,” visit https://www.amazon.com/Diamond-%20Born-Fortitude-Toni-Chavis/dp/B086KQ5SKG .
This radio interview was made possible by ReadersMagnet’s book marketing services. Visit our Official Website: https://www.readersmagnet.com