Annette Thurmon
Co-founder, The Flourishing Assessment · Former ICU charge nurse · Age 42
The nurse who cared for everyone finally ran her own labs.
Doing everything right on paper, and still running low on iron and high on inflammation. Here’s what the data found, and fixed.
From Annette’s own labs and wearables
Where I Started
On paper, I was the healthy one: plant-forward, lifting three times a week, fifteen thousand steps a day. I spent years as an ICU charge nurse, and in 2023 I stepped back from the floor to care for our daughter. I knew all the rules. But I was tired in a way that sleep didn’t fix, and I couldn’t explain why.
What the Data Revealed
My bloodwork told the truth my energy already knew: my iron stores were nearly empty, my inflammation was running high, and my omega-3 index had crashed. My genome explained why the obvious fixes hadn’t worked: I’m a poor converter of plant omega-3s, so ‘just eat more flax’ was never going to be enough. My metabolic markers were already excellent; the gaps were specific, and fixable.
What I Changed
Small, specific corrections, not a whole new life. More protein at every meal. Heavy lifting over endless cardio. Consistent sleep and wake times. And the practices a caregiver always skips first: a clear-headed morning routine, real self-care, tending my own mind the way I tend everyone else’s. The two targeted fixes my labs pointed to, iron I could finally absorb and direct algae omega-3s matched to my genetics, did the rest. I stopped treating myself like a category and started treating myself like a person with data.
Where I Am Now
My iron stores more than tripled and the fatigue lifted. My inflammation dropped by more than half. The metabolic picture was already elite; now the rest of me is catching up. Turns out the person who spends all day reading other people’s charts just needed to finally read her own.
“I cared for patients all day. My own data reminded me to care for myself.”
The Method: the same one behind every Flourishing plan
- 01Measure where you’re starting: your life, your habits, the Flourishing Assessment
- 02Find the root cause, not the symptom
- 03Pull only the levers the data points to
- 04Re-measure, and adjust as you go
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Our personal health journey, shared to encourage yours. This is our story, not a promise of results, and not medical advice. Data from whole-genome sequencing, blood panels, gut testing, and WHOOP.