Doctor’s orders. Danielle Busby gets one step closer to finding the reason behind her mysterious health issues in this week’s episode of OutDaughtered — but the process comes with some frightening realities.
“The other day we learned that there could be something wrong with Danielle’s heart,” her husband, Adam Busby, tells cameras in Us Weekly‘s exclusive clip of the Tuesday, April 20, episode of the TLC series. “It was like a gut punch. I wasn’t quite ready for that.”
Danielle, 37, and Adam, 38, later sit down for a follow up appointment to learn more about “what is actually going on” with the mother of six. “Hearing the fear in her voice … she normally doesn’t let that out,” Adam says in a confessional interview.
“It was a lot of information for me to take in and try to remember to share. I was completely shocked with the things that you were telling me,” Danielle tells the specialists via Zoom. “I’m scared.”
The doctor explains that he has concerns about the possibility that there is a hole in Danielle’s heart, otherwise known as an atrial septal defect. “This next test that we would like to do is called a transesophageal echo … where we actually put the probe through your throat to make sure we find the root cause for your problem,” he adds.
When Adam wonders whether the test would involve “opening up” his wife’s chest, the doctor reminds them both to just “take one thing at a time,” adding that they would consider taking “further intervention” if they find signs of a hole in Danielle’s heart.
After the consultation, Danielle couldn’t help but express her nerves ahead of the operation. “[It] sounds miserable,” she tells the cameras. “This is going to be the most invasive procedure that I’ve had yet, but I think what scares me the most [are] the findings of the test. I don’t want to have heart surgery.”
She continues: “All I keep thinking about is, you know, ‘What about my family?’ … It’s scary.”
The Busbys began sharing updates on Danielle’s medical journey in January after she was hospitalized in November 2020. Though they hoped to find “answers and a clear direction,” some of the tests still left them with questions.
“I’m still on that path to some type of discovery,” Danielle told Us exclusively in March, remembering thinking she “was having a heart attack” and struggling to perform basic tasks. “I do not feel any better or cured by any means. … It definitely has been hard for me to slow down and just kind of realize my body says, ‘No, I can’t do this.’ I’m still working to discover what’s the underlying issue with inflammation and everything that’s going on.”
OutDaughtered airs Tuesdays on TLC at 8 p.m. ET and can also be streamed on Discovery+.
