the UNBREAKABLE
DANA DAVIS It’s a warm summer evening, and a pretty brunette is just settling in to her home in Denver. The new girl in town, it’s a role with which she’s unfamiliar. Back in Los Angeles, everyone knows her name. And her sister’s name. And her late father’s name. And no doubt, her mother’s name. Yet here in the Mile High City, furniture is being delivered, boxes are being unpacked and as it so often does with a move, a less than quiet chaos surrounds her. Laptop in front of her, phone in her ear, she’s directing a cast of thousands and she’s doing it all as she walks with a cane, limping ever so slightly. True to form, this woman doesn’t miss a step – literally or figuratively. It’s all just another day in her life. A life that has never resembled the one most of us know. Not in the slightest. Not for one minute. Meet Dana Davis.
By BETSY MARR Photos by JENSEN SUTTA
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he may be new to Denver on a full time basis, but Dana Davis is no stranger to Colorado. Rewind some three decades and she was one of the five young children of Barbara and Marvin Davis – arguably Denver’s first family at the time. Her father, a gregarious oilman with a staggering net worth, was larger than life and her mother was the petite tour de force by his side. The family spent holidays with heads of state and vacations with Hollywood icons. Their lives, it would seem, were charmed. It was 1977 and Dana, 7, hadn’t been feeling well. After a number of unexplained health incidents, her mother took her to their family pediatrician, Dr. Jules Amer. During that visit, Dana learned that she had type 1 diabetes. Back then, awareness of juvenile diabetes was even more limited than it is today. Naturally, Mrs. Davis was alarmed and concerned for her daughter, unsure of what the complications from such a disease could be. Upon calling her husband to share the news, he famously replied “fix it,” with the confidence only a titan of industry could exude. Unlike most problems that a certain level of privilege can correct, Mrs. Davis couldn’t simply “fix it.” Not yet, anyway. Instead, they were told that Dana would need to take a daily shot of insulin and that she shouldn’t have sugar. The education available for type 1 diabetics was limited and compared to modern day standards, care was rudimentary. “I was terrified of the shots and over the first few weeks, it was really all we were taught,”
Davis explains. “We were overwhelmed by what we didn’t understand.” She was also afraid – notoriously hiding from the nurse sent in to give her that daily insulin shot. Finding a 7-year-old Dana in the Davis’ palatial home was no small undertaking. “I was an hour late to school every morning the first month I was diagnosed. Those shots horrified me,” she remembers. Soon, the Davises would journey the 2,000 miles to Boston’s Joslin Center. With Dana in tow, Barbara and Marvin Davis were thrust into the world of diabetes on that trip, learning everything there was to know about the disease in the late 1970s. The Joslin Center was and is wholly focused on diabetes and the Davises left armed with a wealth of knowledge and level of care they couldn’t get in Denver. This became the catalyst to a lifelong mission and legacy. “My parents realized how incongruent the resources were in Boston as opposed to Denver. Soon after that trip, my mother asked me if I thought it would be nice to have a similar clinic in Colorado,” Dana recalls. “My parents were mindful of the fact that most families couldn’t travel across the country to receive care like we could. They wanted to help people with diabetes right here in our backyard. That, and I don’t think they wanted to travel 2,000 miles every time I needed to go to the doctor,” she laughs. With that, Barbara Davis took the first steps of what has been a 40-year voyage in conquering diabetes. By the fall, she had incorporated the Children’s Diabetes Foundation, soon hiring its first employee. It wasn’t long before her tenacity took over and efforts were underway to build the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes. All the while, Dana’s care was top priority. Yet diabetes in the 70s looked much different than it does today. “Back
Mignonne Gavigan Le Marcel Beaded Scarf Necklace, $725; Dana’s Own Dress // Hair by Dawn Addington, Grand Salon, grand-salon.com // Makeup by Kate McCarthy, Vert Beauty, vertbeauty.com WHERE TO SHOP: O2 Aspen Cherry Creek • 720.542.3756 • o2aspen.com // Calypso St. Barth Denver • 303.394.2904 • calypsostbarth.com
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