Healing gives Trussville sisters babies, many ‘shocks’

When doctors gently handed John Salmon his 4-pound, 14-ounce son on April 27, the gender was a surprise.

But Bailey Thomas Salmon was a miracle.

When John and his wife, D’onne, married in 1998, her poor health history prodded the couple to assume there would be no children.

But the next blow — what D’onne’s mother called the “most horrible thing that has happened in our lives” — made that assumption seem a surety.

A month after their wedding, D’onne noticed weakness and numbness in her arms and legs, a condition that only got worse. When she couldn’t raise her arms or walk across her living room without falling, she went to the emergency room.

A neurologist diagnosed her with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a nerve disorder that, according to the Guillain-Barre Syndrome Foun­dation International, causes weakness or paralysis of the legs, arms, breathing muscles and face — and there is no effective treatment.

Though frightened, “I knew the only way I was going to make it was through faith in God and the prayers of my family and friends,” D’onne said.

Soon, she was paralyzed and had difficulty swallowing. Life-support measures began, and doctors predicted she would be in intensive care at least two months.

D’onne lay nearly immobile, communicating by pointing at letters to spell out words.

“I knew I had to cling to God alone,” she said. “My favorite verse became ever more special: ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’”

Miraculously, nine days later D’onne was off the respirator and released from intensive care.

Now home, she faced a battle to regain her strength and muscle control.

Just a few houses down the street, her sister, Allison Willard, also fought an ongoing battle — one against undiagnosed gynecological problems she’d had since her teens.

She and her husband, Joe, longed for children, but in eight years of testing, specialists found no reason for her infertility. They suggested fertility medication, which Allison instinctively said she knew was not the answer.

It wasn’t. Still she clung to Hannah’s story in 1 Samuel, praying for a miracle.

And her younger sister D’onne got one in October 2002 that came as a “complete shock to the entire family” — she was miraculously pregnant.

Allison said she was thrilled and stunned at the announcement, yet her little sister’s news made her infertility all the more heart-wrenching.

Then God provided hope through an unlikely source — her dermatologist.

“After all those gynecologists I saw, I’m still amazed it was a dermatologist who led me to an answer,” Allison said.

The dermatologist questioned Allison’s blood tests and referred her to an endocrinologist, who discovered Allison’s adrenal glands were functioning abnormally. The physician cautioned that regaining normal function would be a slow process.

“The doctors said, ‘There is no way, honey, you can ever get pregnant the way your body is now,’” Allison said.

But the doctors were mistaken.

Allison, who is due to give birth in September, said the unborn child is a gift of 1 Samuel 1:27 granted over again centuries later: “I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him.”

Allison and D’onne, members of NorthPark Baptist Church in Birmingham, said they want to encourage others dealing with health issues and infertility.

“We didn’t plan this. God did,” D’onne said.