More than Just a Faceless Number in the Pandemic

There’s nothing quite like those moments of enlightenment when you realize that your feelings and motives go deeper and are more personal than you previously realized or openly admitted.  Why do I care so deeply about people being responsible and staying home as much as possible during this pandemic?

Whenever I was asked, my first impulse answer was always that I didn’t want anything to happen to those I care about and their loved ones, that there are people in my life that are older or are immuno-compromised, friends who are considered high risk because they just got over cancer or who have just had a baby. I care a lot, perhaps too much at times, about other people, mostly because I know what it is like to struggle and suffer and I don’t want anyone else to needlessly go through any heartache or pain.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how much everything affects others that I often forget to consider my own personal situation. Perhaps I also struggle to consider myself among those who need extra protection, those who are determined to be at a higher risk, those in the biggest danger. I have come to see myself as a fighter, a survivor, and being lumped into that category is like accepting that I am fragile, weak, that I am less than the strong person I believe myself to be.

I have been through a lot in my life.  As a child, I endured every type of abuse imaginable.  Physical, mental and emotional abuse lent to my PTSD diagnosis.  Sexual abuse led to my doctors telling me I might never be able to have children.  Yet I persevered.

At sixteen, my abusive childhood culminated with my mother shooting my father.  I was bounced around among family members for a little over a year before finding myself on my own before I was even eighteen years old. Yet I survived.

Even though addiction ran in my family in the form of both drug and alcohol abuse, and trauma like mine often serves as a catalyst for substance abuse, I managed to avoid both and powered on.

I have struggled with severe depression my entire life, due in part to abuse and trauma, and partly due to a genetic mutation that deprives my brain of the substances it needs to adequately moderate my moods, yet I found ways to continue to function and continue to fight.

I have suffered much heartache over the years, from failed unhealthy and abusive relationships, to multiple miscarriages, yet refused to let any of it ultimately break me.

Cancer runs in both sides of my family.  It stole my mother’s brother way too young.  I watched as it slowly ate away at my father until there was nothing left of him and as it almost killed my mother.  Starting in my twenties, I have had numerous cancer-related health scares of my own.  I had two pre-cancerous atypical pap smears that required cryosurgery and was told afterwards that they were caught just in the nick of time.  In my thirties, they found a mass on the side of my breast extending under my arm that was deemed non-cancerous.  At forty, I had to have one of my ovaries removed because there was a large cyst on it with a fibrous mass inside.  Thankfully, the biopsy after my oophorectomy showed the mass to be benign.  And finally, a little less than two years ago, doctors found not one but two meningioma tumors on my brain.  Yet I continue on and refuse to lose hope.

I continue on because I am a survivor. That is what I do.  I keep going. I power on.  I fight whatever life throws my way.

And I do so with kindness in my heart.  I never want my own life experiences to make me jaded or cruel.  I know what it feels like to suffer and I would not wish my struggles on anyone else.  I try to always show others kindness regardless of whether it was ever shown to me in my own times of need.  I have always firmly believed that there is too much suffering in this world and it is our responsibility to be kind to one another, to watch out for each other, and to ease each other’s pain whenever possible.

And somewhere along the way, I rediscovered myself.  I found a miraculous inner strength, a renewed sense of purpose and even was blessed enough to have wonderful children and find a deep and true lasting love.  I have transformed my own pain into mental health advocacy for others.  I write and speak out to encourage others to keep going, to never give up.  I empathize with the struggles of others and let them know they are not alone.  My writing has been showcased worldwide, discussed on television, radio and internet media programs and shared by numerous government agencies, private practices, and advocacy groups along the way.  I have managed to reach and help more people than I ever imagined possible.  My children and my writing are a legacy I am proud to leave behind.

I have come a long way in life and I have overcome many obstacles along the way.  I am a fighter.  A survivor.

However, to the medical community, I am reduced to a simple list of stats.  Though in normal times, doctors often make an effort to acquaint themselves with their patients to better serve their needs, we are currently in the middle of a worldwide viral pandemic.  The number of infected is increasing daily by the thousands in my country.  And to make matters worse, I happen to live in New York – the current epicenter of the virus in the United States.  Doctors don’t have the time or the energy to get to know all of their patients well right now in an emergency setting.  They have to make split decisions based on medical history prior to infection.

And the simple fact is that I have cancer.  I have two tumors on my brain.  I’m honestly not sure it even matters that the tumors are benign or that right before the pandemic was declared a national emergency, my neurosurgeon informed us that my tumors have shown little to no noticeable growth in the last eighteen months’ of MRI scans.  The cancer diagnosis alone means that I am considered high risk and my treatment is considered a lesser priority than someone else without preexisting conditions.

The fact that I have continuously fought hard and survived many things over the course of my entire life is irrelevant.

The fact that I have dedicated years to helping and advocating for others is irrelevant.

The fact that I am otherwise relatively healthy is irrelevant.

Even the fact that I am a mother and a fiance is irrelevant because every single person that comes through the hospital doors is family to someone.  They are all a son or a daughter.  Many are parents, grandparents, spouses, friends.  We all have a story.

But my story can be reduced to one word, a word that makes my treatment less of a priority during a pandemic. Cancer.

As much as I want to say, want to believe, that the primary reason if not the only reason I want people to stay inside and be responsible is to protect others, I have to accept that I need protecting, too.  My health and well-being is important, as well.  I am part of that at risk, high risk group.  If I get sick, my treatment will possibly, if not likely, be deemed less of a priority.

I don’t want to see myself as someone needing protection because I don’t want to be seen as a victim. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me.  I am a fighter.  A survivor.  I have beaten the odds again and again.  I have a lot of living left to do and a lot of fight left in me.  I have children who I long to see grow into their own.  I have a wedding to plan.  I have more writing and advocacy to do.  And I have this cancer to beat.

My staying home unless absolutely necessary only goes so far to flatten the curve.  I am depending on others to be responsible, as well.  Every person out there interacting is a possible carrier and the more people congregating in a given area, the bigger and more likely the spread.  The more this virus spreads, the more likely I am to get it.  Hospitals in my state are already struggling to the point where do not resuscitate orders have been put in place if somebody dies.  If the hospitals become even more overwhelmed, they will be put in the same place Italy was at the apex of their crisis – with doctors having to choose who gets treatment and who dies based solely on their prior medical history.  And having tumors means if the hospitals are overwhelmed, I might be deemed not worth saving because they don’t have the manpower, equipment, time or energy to save everyone.

It’s easy to consider terms such as “acceptable losses” or to shrug off deaths of the elderly and sick as “the thinning of the herd” when you think in terms of abstract numbers instead of considering the actual people behind those numbers.  It is different when you consider the faces and stories of those people and the families they will be leaving behind.  Even one person needlessly contracting this virus and dying should be one person too many.  We all have families and stories.  We aren’t just faceless numbers.  And many of us still have a lot of life left to live and a greater purpose left to fulfill.

I didn’t come this far to only come this far.  I’m continuing to fight the good fight because I want to eventually leave this world a better, kinder place than it was when I entered it.

I don’t want to die.

I don’t want any of you to die either.

Republished on The Mighty on 5/4/20.

Republished on Yahoo News on 5/4/20.

 

In Remembrance of 9/11

*** I know I normally write about mental health topics on my blog, but I believe this had to be written, had to be shared. I hope my readers will understand.  I apologize for the casual writing and punctuation, as well – Please know that this comes from the heart, completely unedited and raw.  ***

We have two framed pics hanging in the apartment.. one by our bedroom door and one in the little hallway by the bathroom.. they were both my fiance’s when we got together.. as much as all of our other walls are covered with pictures of happy memories, I felt it was important to hang them up, as well, because it’s so easy to take life for granted.. to take family for granted.. Life can change in an instant..

It’s so easy to look at things on the news as far away, with that abstract “it’ll never happen to me” feeling.. something on the other side of the world that has little impact on our everyday lives.. well that day it landed squarely on our front door..

As our parents could tell us where they were when Kennedy was shot.. and many of the people around my age remember sitting in class watching the Challenger explode live on television, anyone who was alive that day and old enough to remember it can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing..

I had just sent my daughter to school.. I remember hearing that there was a plane that may have veered upstate and may be looking for a large target.. her school was on lockdown.. I couldn’t get her out.. home.. safe.. I remember feeling completely helpless to do anything to keep her safe, jumping at the slightest sound.. scouring the skies looking for planes.. praying I wouldn’t see any..

I remember thinking of all the other parents.. children.. spouses.. siblings.. neighbors.. friends.. all the others listening desperately to the tv or the radio.. not knowing whether their loved ones were safe.. whether they were even alive.. I remember watching broadcasts of people jumping.. watching the explosions aired and re-aired.. thinking to myself how on earth could this happen?

In the aftermath, I remember crying and hugging my children tightly.. not wanting to ever let go but not being sure what to tell them.. I remember the ever-present fear that it might land on our doorstep again.. that it was no longer distant and abstract.. that we were no longer safe.. that we had never been safe – we only fooled ourselves into believing we were because things like that had never hit so close to home..

I remember friends heading downstate to NYC to help.. friends going to the recruiters to find out about enlisting.. friends posting about family they had lost, childhood friends, neighbors.. I remember stopping in my tracks for months afterwards whenever I heard a plane.. Everyone in this country’s lives were changed that day..

There’s a section in the New York State Museum in Albany dedicated to that day.. Though I have been to that museum dozens of times, I still cannot walk through that display without crying.. Every single time, I pass others with tear-stained cheeks.. We all remember.. None of us can ever forget..

These days, everything is so divisive.. you’re either this or you’re that.. republican or democrat.. either black lives matter or cop lives do.. pro-life or pro-choice.. everyone is expected to pick sides.. you either care about guns and your rights to bear arms or you care about the safety of our children.. if you support kneeling during the anthem, you must hate your country and the military.. either you support gay rights or religion.. nobody is allowed to be middle of the road.. no one is allowed to be the voice of reason.. you’re expected to pick a corner and blindly hate the other side for having differing views, completely and without thought..

perhaps what this country needs more than anything today is to take ourselves back to that day.. a day when we were all lost, all scared.. when we reached out and cried in each others’ arms, when we didn’t care if someone was democrat or republican, whether they were black or white, gay or straight, religious or atheist.. maybe we need to all go back to when we were all just Americans who were all shocked and scared, who reached out to each other so that nobody had to face that day alone..

I can’t think of a better way to honor that day, and all those lives lost, than to stop our fighting, stop the blind hate and all come together again as Americans..

And please.. if you do nothing else today, hug those who matter to you.. Be kind to others.. Let go of the blind hate and love one another.. Never forget that our lives and the world we know can change in an instant.

Much love from my heart and home to yours.