-
- |
-
- |
- |
- 3
What lies ahead for Vicki Kennedy? She’s 55 years old and a widow. She’s spent the past 17 years married to a man 22 years her senior. For over a year, she’s been dealing with his slow death from brain cancer. So her recent lifestyle has been that of a woman older than her age.
And now it’s over. Where does she go from here? Now that he’s buried, does she admit, after all, that she would be interested in taking her deceased husband’s Senate seat? It wouldn’t be terribly surprising if she did. By all accounts she has been closely involved in her husband’s political life and is popular with his staff. Her poise over the past week has had a somewhat senatorial bearing to it. She’d be in fine company if she decides to go down that path. Washington has a long history of well-known congressional widows—Lindy Boggs and Mary Bono are two who immediately spring to mind, but there have been several others.
In fact, there have been so many that the L.A. Times once did the math and figured out that succeeding a dead husband was a woman's surest road to congressional electoral victory. Of all the 95 women who went to Capitol Hill through 1976, 35 were widows. And of first-time House candidates from 1916 to 1993, 84 percent of the widows won, while only 14 percent of other women were victorious.
So if Mrs. Kennedy decides to go to Washington, let’s assume that she can.
But she might not. There is no archetypal response to widowhood just as there is no archetypal widow. Yet roughly 700,000 women in the United States lose their husbands each year, and half the women over the age of 65 in this country are widows, according to the Census Bureau.
Today, widows are everywhere. Check any social website—Facebook, Meetup, Google or Yahoo groups—and you’ll find the bereaved, collecting to share their stories of grief and offer support. Within the statistics, categories of widows are springing up. Yes, there have already been a number of congressional—not to mention Kennedy—widows, but there are also well-known groups of widows in Florida, widows in stilettos, widows in red hats. There are widows under and over 50, widows of celebrities or prominent men, widows of veterans or of terrorist attacks. There are literary widows (like Joan Didion or Joyce Brothers) who go onto write bestselling books about their experience. This past July, there was even a widow’s conference in San Diego.
At this particular moment (by which I mean the days, weeks, and months that immediately follow the time of her husband’s death), Mrs. Kennedy’s future stretches out in front of her. At the same time her immediate past has become frozen, crystallized, and perhaps idealized by grief. For now, she’ll have practical matters to deal with. There’s bureaucracy to be waded through, forms to fill in, letters to answer, and clothes to pack up. Undoubtedly she’ll be busy, but she’ll be very sad, and quite lonely. It’s hard to imagine that in years to come, she’ll only remember little snippets from this time. For although this is the end of a chapter in her life, it’s also a beginning. Women do laugh again, they often love again and they certainly keep on living. Vicki Kennedy may or may not go to Washington. She may or may not marry again. But she has a life ahead of her and it has just begun.
If you are a widow, are related to or know one, we’d like to hear from you. What is the experience like? Tell us about how things change. What’s hard? What gives you hope? How you are transformed by the experience? What advice would you give Mrs. Kennedy? Share the details of saying goodbye to an old life and love and adjusting to the new. Tell us your story. E-mail me at emma@thecomebackbook.com, and just put "widow" in the subject line.
Photograph of Ted and Vicki Kennedy by Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images.
-
- |
-
- |
- |
- 5
We’re heading into the last weekend of August. Time to throw a party. And just in the nick of time, Rachael Cordella of The City Girl Cooks has rejoined us with some great, quick, and easy recipes. Mix your own cocktails, and if you want to share the ingredients, post them in the comments section.
When I graduated from college, I had grand visions of life as an adult. These visions included dinner parties hosted with a husband. At age 25. As we all know, life doesn’t always work out the way we imagine. The husband didn’t appear until I was 26 (and didn’t actually become the husband until I was 31), and New York apartments aren’t conducive to dinner parties with more than 4 people. Instead of a formal meal, heavy appetizers are a great way to go when you don’t have a big dining room—or any dining room. Spreading platters around the apartment utilizes smaller spaces (a plate on the windowsill, a bowl on an end table), and encourages people to move around. Someday I’ll have dinner parties. But until then, I’ll happily entertain with what I’ve got. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Take cherry or grape tomatoes, bocconcini (small mozzarella balls), and basil. Thread onto bamboo skewers, alternating among the three.
- Blanch asparagus. Beginning about a half-inch from the tip, wrap a slice of proscuitto around each stalk.
- Take hard, store-bought breadsticks and wrap each with a few arugula leaves and a slice of pastrami. Serve with Russian dressing for dipping.
- Mash several avocados and a cup of green peas. Add a bit of garlic, lemon juice, and cilantro. Low-fat guacamole! Serve with pita chips and sliced vegetables.
- Buy prepared whole-wheat pizza dough. Roll it out and cut circles using a cookie cutter or drinking glass. Top with sauce, cheese, and veggies for mini-pizzas. Or get as fancy as you want—sautéed mushroom pizza with goat cheese and a drop of truffle oil is delicious. Bake until golden.
- Combine one packet of powdered ranch dressing mix, 1/8 cup vegetable oil, and ½ tsp dill. Mix in 5 cups (one box) of oyster crackers. Bake 15 min at 250 degrees, stirring once. Sounds strange, but I promise it’s delicious.
- Combine 4 ounces of softened low-fat cream cheese (not whipped) with 1/3 cup low-fat sour cream. Add 3 tablespoons confectioner's sugar, ¼ teaspoon almond extract and 1 tablespoon milk. Mix well (a hand mixer or mini food processor will make this go quickly). Serve dip with fresh strawberries—leave the stems on—and a separate bowl of crushed graham crackers. My mom made this over the weekend and it really tastes like strawberry cheesecake—amazing!
- Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces. Marinate for about a half hour in low-fat greek yogurt, lemon zest, curry powder, and a pinch of salt. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. Serve with prepared chutney and wedges of pita bread.
Rachael Simon Cordella is a professional social worker and amateur cook. Her blog, The City Girl Cooks, features easy and (mostly) healthy recipes using everyday ingredients. She and her husband live in New York City and cook together in their tiny kitchen.
Photograph of woman holding cocktail by Jack Hollingsworth/Photodisc/Getty Images.
-
- |
-
- |
- |
- 2
Rachel Balik writes a very funny blog, The Wicked Witch of the Web. When she lost her job, she posted 10 Reasons It's Great to Be Laid Off on her site. After I read her list, I asked her to write something for Your Comeback.
She rose to the challenge. Here's her take on why unemployment makes the world a better place.
As a staff writer at a small online publisher just gaining traction in Sept. 2008, I started preparing for my layoff the minute CNN flashed the word “bailout” across the TV screen at my gym. I made sure I was financially prepared. I made sure that I had a plan for what to do with my leftover business cards. But I was not prepared for the feeling of being useless.
Working for a living has been an important American value since the Puritans, and working is all anyone in New York City cares about. Thus, the first two weeks of my layoff involved a fair bit of weeping and self-loathing. When I finally waded through the red tape and started receiving unemployment checks, I became determined to somehow earn them.
I started thinking of myself as a professional champion of good will, a sort of Tiny Tim-type, but without crutches or an English accent. And I came up with these.
Ten Reasons Why Your Layoff is Good for the Universe.
God bless them, every one.
10. You become the child your family always wanted.
When all your employed friends have no news to report (“Yup ... just work ... same as always ...”), you can make your mom’s day by calling to get the gossip about every single family on your childhood block. Then call your grandma, just to say hello. When someone in your family gets pregnant, offer your free services as babysitter. (And if you end up employed again before nine months is up, it’s the thought that counts.)
9. You’re taking care of tourists, every day.
When you’re on your way to work, tourists are your worst nightmare. They slow things down. They get lost. But when you’re laid off, you move at a tourist’s pace because, frankly, you don’t have anywhere to be. Help those lost tourists get found. Then ask if they’d like you to take a picture. You’ve got the time.
8. You can remind angry Republicans that Obama’s election wasn’t such a bad thing.
“I know this wasn’t how you envisioned your retirement, Grandpa. But think how great it is that I get unemployment for a whole year. COBRA, too!”
7. You’re putting an end to road rage, one driver at a time.
You’d be surprised how inconsequential two hours of traffic is when you have 24 hours a day of free time. Can you believe that guy rode the whole way in the shoulder and wants to cut in now? Sure! He’s an innovative thinker. The more the merrier.
6. You ask, “How are you?” and listen to the answer.
You may not believe this if you’re currently employed, but it is possible to get sick of thinking about yourself. Hearing about how someone else’s day is going is a great way to entertain yourself while you’re waiting for prime-time TV to start.
5. You become a better friend.
If I had a dollar for the number of times I’ve said, “Call me whenever you need me. Any time, day or night!” then I wouldn’t have to be looking for a new job.
4. You can cover the late shift.
You and your roommates will never be sure if the mouse problem is solved unless someone’s there at 3 a.m. to make sure the little guy doesn’t creep out. Park your butt in the kitchen and wait for it.
3. Help to lower gross national anxiety.
Previously, anxiety attacks were necessary aids in accomplishing all your anxiety-provoking tasks. Post-layoff, all you have to worry about is being unemployed. You can tackle this quandary with simple, mellow, episodes of low-grade unease.
2. You evolve into an expert list-maker.
When you are employed, you are constantly scrambling to meet deadlines. At my job, I wrote two articles a day and then had to summarize them in 140 characters on Twitter. I didn’t have time to make to-do lists! Now I make to-do lists all the time—and it’s easy to check off items, too. 1) Make a list. 2) Visit the museum. 3) Cruise Craigslist for unpaid writing jobs. 4) Get coffee. 5) Make another list.
1. You can tell people how great layoffs are.
With more layoffs happening every day, it’s better for American morale if people can look forward to, rather than dread, their layoffs. Singing the praises of unemployment is a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.
Rachel Balik is a newly freelanced writer living in Brooklyn. You can regularly read her writing (for free!) on her blog, The Wicked Witch of the Web. She will also write you a top ten list on any subject of your choosing if you e-mail her.
Photograph of three women by Medioimages/Photodisc/Getty Images.
-
- |
-
- |
- |
- 14
Someone said to me the other day that all mothers feel at some point as if they are single parents. I understand what she meant, but I’m not sure I agree. There is a difference between having someone to share a child with and having sole responsibility. Jen Shelton addresses this topic below in the piece she sent in about being the single mother of her daughter, Zuzu.
My daughter is adopted. I had a long career path, partly because I left a career as a financial journalist to get a Ph.D. in British modernism, which turns out to be a difficult field to get a job in.
Nevertheless, I managed to, and when it was clear the book I’d written would find a publisher (or rather, when I started to believe people who said it would), I started proceedings to adopt. Zuzu was born in China. I adopted her just before China barred single adoptions. She is five now, and I got her when she was two days shy of her first birthday.
My calculus was sort of like this: My book was accepted two days before I left to get her in China; I was certain to get tenure at that point; I have a job that is demanding but flexible (I can take her to class with me when she is sick, for instance—luckily, she's very healthy, so that only happens once a semester or so).
I thought that I would be able to spend a good bit of time with her, and that I wouldn't be bringing her here to spend all her time in daycare. I adopted rather than having a child biologically partly because I knew there were babies out there who needed families, although it would have been faster and cheaper to give birth myself. Also, I didn't have a great support system here—I'm 2,000 miles from my nearest relative—and I thought it would be really hard to cope with a newborn, recover from childbirth, and teach, all on my own.
In short, I had my child in the way that I thought was the most likely to turn out well for both of us. Being single and a mom is not that different from being married and a mom, I often think, except that if I were married, I would be richer and could get someone to help me with things like housework and yard care.
Also, when your baby has an ear infection and screams for six nights straight and you don't get even one minute of relief—when there is literally no one who can help you at all—that is pretty hard. But luckily, that is temporary.
I don't have to fight with someone over the best way to raise my kid, or at least, when I do fight, I'm going to win because I'm actually Zuzu's mother. I don't get pissed at anyone for not helping with household chores, because obviously I'm the one who has to do it all.
I have all the blessings of motherhood with none of the hassles of having a man in the house, so it's a choice I'd make again. I wish I could have another child, but I don't think I could support another kid, so I guess we're done. We do have three cats, so we're not totally solitary. Zuzu has lots of people besides me to love—godparents, friends, an extended family (though we see them just at Christmas time)—so I don't feel that her life is particularly bereft, though I do worry that if I'm hit by a bus, there's no one else who has her history.
She has already lost part of her history because of the circumstances of her birth, so I try to construct elaborate scrapbooks and storybooks for her so that if something does happen to me, she'll still have something. She's one of the happiest and most well-adjusted kids I know.
She feels sorry for kids whose parents didn't adopt them, but I tell her that their parents love them just as much as I love her. I am keenly aware of how my choices affect her, and though others tell me Zuzu is lucky to be my daughter, I'm more inclined to say, "Well, I’m better than an orphanage." I try to read everything I can to help me understand what she's likely to experience as she grows older because of the mildly peculiar nature of our family and circumstances of her birth. My aim is to help her process any difficulties she might have with this. But I don't know whether my desire to have a daughter somehow diverted her life from some happier outcome she might have had without my intervention.
Like many parents, I have my child because I really, really wanted her. I am exhausted all the time, and my house is never clean, and I get summonses from the city every summer because of the state of my yard, but having this little person in my life is far and away the best thing I've ever done and brings me more joy (also more frustration, but no one said it would be easy) than any other thing I've done—and I've done some things that are at least reasonably big accomplishments likely to bring happiness.
Jen Shelton is an Associate Professor of English at Texas Tech University.
Photograph of Jen and Zuzu Shelton courtesy of Jen Shelton.
-
- |
-
- |
- |
- 2
This is part seven of Bridget's wedding countdown. Read parts one, two, three, four, five, and six.
In less than two weeks, our wedding will be over, and our marriage will have just begun. But until then, there’s plenty to orchestrate. My mom (you remember my mom) told me that when she reports to her friends with recently-married children that our wedding prep is going smoothly, they all say, with the best of intentions, "Just wait. Something will go wrong."
I get it. Life is full of unforeseen turns of events; why should weddings be any different?
I keep trying to imagine the worst thing that could happen, which is known in the world of psychology as "catastrophic thinking." I'm great at it. Here's a brief litany of the thoughts that usually occur to me when I get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and take out my retainer: My veil will not be ready in time; the Gruner Vetliner will not be cold enough; my hairpiece makes me look like I have a pinhead; no one will have fun; no will dance; the caterers will be late; the rehearsal dinner toasts will veer into the wildly inappropriate (as opposed to the acceptably inappropriate); I will get bronchitis two days before the wedding; Dan will get bronchitis two days before the wedding; someone will get bronchitis two days before the wedding; no one will have fun, again.
But here's the truth: No matter what goes wrong, everything will be OK. Actually, now that I've typed that, I can imagine a few things that would be really awful: sudden deaths, earthquakes ... things like that. But even if a vendor is a no-show, or my hairpiece won’t stay on my head, or a sudden freak frost kills all the Lisianthus, we will still get married. We will still be surrounded by many of our friends and family. We will still celebrate.
I'm reminding myself of that as I curse at our inkjet printer. We are printing the menus and programs ourselves ... or rather, trying to print the menus and programs ourselves. There are other things left to be done—things that will not really matter on the day, but that I’m fretting over anyway. Don’t all the guests want to know if they are eating Tilapia or Barramundi? I know I do. Oh! And the escort cards—that's what they call the card that tells you where you are seated—we have to do those, too. And we have to bake/buy cookies to deliver to the neighbors in an attempt to make them less likely to call the police and report a noise violation, although we should be wrapping up around the time that becomes an issue. We are, so you know, planning on exploiting the bridesmaids by making them deliver the cookies. They're all quite charming young ladies.
As we've gotten closer to the wedding, I’ve realized that this about so much more than just us exchanging vows. It's an occasion for everyone to get together and celebrate. Satellite celebrations are springing up all over the place: Family members who get in early are meeting up; the bridesmaids are barbequing with everyone who arrives on Friday; Dan's great aunt is taking a week to travel around Southern California. I just hope everyone wears plenty of sunblock, since another item from my middle-of-the-night fears is that people get sunburned, so they don’t have fun.
I'll let you know how it goes, but I can tell you now, I think it'll go pretty well! Hear that? That's the sound of the fates getting tempted; they love a party.
Image courtesy of Bridget Moloney.
-
- |
-
- |
- |
- 2
"Kat," a single physical trainer from New York, has long wanted to be a mother. Now in her early 40s, she is currently undergoing intrauterine insemination (IUI). She has agreed to share her experience with us, although she would like to keep her identity private. In her first installment she descrbed her decision to try to get pregnant this way. In the second part she told how she picked the sperm donor. In the third installment she described the procedure. Today she tells us what happened after she took a pregnancy test.
I knew I was pregnant from the home tests, and it never really occurred to me that anything bad would happen until I told my friend who had gone through this process (and now has a baby by an egg donor) that it had worked. She said, “Oh, I got pregnant a couple of times, but it doesn’t mean anything. It probably won’t stick.”
But I was excited. Even though people tell you that you shouldn’t, I started thinking about names. Girls' names, actually, because I already have a boy’s name. I started thinking about how much fun we were going to have—just the two of us. Maybe this baby is going to find a daddy, the one I couldn’t seem to find. I couldn’t wait to meet this person. And although I had been thinking about how much work it was going to be to raise a child on my own, I got my first glimpse of how much I was actually going to receive from this cool little being. Motherhood is going to be a lot of fun. Not just diapers and nights with no sleep. A cool bond and a fresh new perspective.
After the positive pregnancy test, I went in for a blood test to have my beta and progesterone levels checked. The nurse called me later that afternoon and said, “Your beta levels are 54.”
I had no idea what that meant, except that even though the nurse was trying to sound optimistic and upbeat, I could hear something in her voice that told me this was not really good. She assured me that they look for levels between 50 and 300 and everyone is different.
My progesterone levels were below 10 at 7.5, so they wanted me to start progesterone right away. I kept telling myself that I needed to keep my spirits up and think positively, although I knew this was a tenuous situation. I had to wait two days for the next test, and during that time I forced myself not to panic. I tried to send my embryo "good" energy, tried to eat perfectly and took my vitamins diligently.
I felt that this was still in God’s hands, but that I had to make my own best effort.
I couldn’t help thinking things might be different if I hadn’t exercised or gotten caught in the heat walking to a restaurant, or if I hadn’t been nervous, or had said a prayer at the right moment.
On Wednesday, I got back my next test results and the nurse said, “I’m sorry, your numbers went down to 22.” I expected it, so I didn’t have a melt down, but I did feel a lot of sadness. And frankly, a lot of fear. I was scared that maybe my eggs are too old, and it will never work. I kept trying to stay focused on the good stories. Someone I know had a baby with no problems at 44, another friend easily had her second at 41. Good stories. Keep your attention on the good stories, Kat.
I asked the nurse. She said that based on these numbers it was not a viable embryo from the get-go. “It doesn’t matter what you did, it wasn’t going to stick.”
This is a very common occurrence, actually. Now that they can test for pregnancy so early, they know about these miscarriages, but previously most women just thought they got a late period—they had no idea they were even pregnant.
I decided to treat myself and got an ice cream. The creamiest, most fattening one I could find. I sat on a park bench, ate it, and cried.
I got the final numbers on Friday. My beta level had dropped to six. I went to acupuncture to calm myself down and strengthen my system. I got my period on Friday night and I knew it was over. I was glad in a way. My body was hurting just waiting for it and the sooner the better so I can start again. I grieved a bit, counted the days to my next ovulation (and the next possible due date!) and decided to look forward.
Photograph by Digital Vision/Getty Images.
-
- |
-
- |
- |
- 1
Health is like money. We take it for granted unless we don’t have it. But what if your health has always been poor? What if you’ve gone from doctor to doctor searching for answers that simply don’t exist yet?
When Jessie Franke of Omaha, Neb., wrote in describing her lifelong battle against poor health, I was reminded that there is still so much in medicine we don’t know. We expect our doctors to have all the answers—but the truth is they have very few. Jessie has five different conditions and illnesses. She’s had a tough life, but in the end she’s one of the lucky ones: She got five answers. How many others are out there suffering because of our lack of knowledge?
One of Jessie’s symptoms was weight gain. Illness can drastically change the way you look (check out today’s Well blog in the New York Times for an essay about When Cancer Changes Your Appearance).
If your appearance has been altered by ill health, write to me at emma@thecomebackbook.com. Now over to Jessie.
I've been chronically ill my entire life. When I was little, no one knew what was wrong with me. I was moody, socially awkward, and suffered from constant stomach aches, fatigue, and generalized pain. I was just considered merely "high-strung" because I was "so smart." Ah, ignorance is bliss.
My depression worsened in high school. At that point, I attributed my misery to my supernatural ability to see the world as it really was—an awful place. Once other symptoms set in, like weight gain (the worst thing ever for a teenage girl), a doctor gave me my first correct diagnosis: Hashimoto's hypothyroidism (a type of autoimmune disease that destroys the thyroid gland.) I was 15.
Despite lifelong symptoms, I still mark that day as the beginning of my illness. My self-conception changed forever. I was told that simply taking a pill every day for the rest of my life would "fix me," but it didn't. The clichéd consolation, "At least you've got your health," became a cruel joke that didn't apply to me.
My health declined throughout the rest of high school and college. I quit the tennis team, took a reduced schedule, threw up blood in the middle of an exam, and endured countless painful and terrifying tests to find out the cause of my stomach aches. I was still academically successful, so my family and friends assumed I was actually fine, while doctors declared I was making it all up to get attention.
My illnesses were invisible, my symptoms relatively minor, meaning my complaints could be carelessly discounted. Sometimes I wished for a common, acute, life-threatening, easy-to-diagnose, visible illness so I could get some damn sympathy for once. Even the very visible fact that I was bloated and overweight due to side effects of failed drugs, from antidepressants to muscle relaxants for pain, was attributed by doctors to overeating and lack of exercise.
After college, I dropped out of biology graduate school in the middle of my first year. I was 22. I'd been attending my classes, struggling through my rotations, and trying my best, but it wasn't good enough. My endlessly patient but bewildered husband would feed and change me into my pajamas at the end of every day while I sobbed in pain and exhaustion. (Incidentally, my husband, whom I'd met in college and married right after, discovered he had such a knack for caring for people that he's gone back to school to become a nurse.) I tried to convince myself that I wanted to quit, not that I had to, but it wasn't true. The illness had finally won. It was the first time I'd ever quit anything in my life, and I felt like a failure with a ruined life.
We moved into my parents' basement, not knowing if I'd ever recover. I couldn't get up the stairs more than once a day and slept most of the time. Every movement, every touch, was excruciating, and I spent most of my lonely waking hours contemplating suicide.
But finally, I found doctors who believed me and started trying to help. A rheumatologist diagnosed fibromyalgia (a disorder in which overactive nerves cause widespread pain and fatigue) and sent me to physical therapy in a warm water pool, where I drew confused glances from the other (geriatric) patients. After each hour session, it felt like I'd run two marathons, even though all I'd done was move my arms and legs in circles through the water. However, gradually my strength and range of motion returned.
A psychiatrist diagnosed bipolar disorder, which explained why antidepressants had never helped (and also explained my occasional bouts of frenzied activity and unbridled enthusiasm). An anti-epileptic drug regulated my moods and alleviated most of my remaining pain. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) curbed my suicidal feelings and ameliorated my finally-diagnosed Asperger's syndrome. Within months I was working in a lab again, although I often couldn't manage a full 40 hours a week and felt guilty when I had to slink out early. My husband and I bought a house and made friends. I dieted, and was now able to walk or ride a bike for an hour and a half a day. On the day the scale said I'd lost the 50th pound, I pronounced myself cured (willfully ignoring the fact that you can't cure chronic illnesses, you just manage them). I was 25.
Eventually I decided to search for a career that my post-illness self would enjoy. I considered everything, even becoming a pastry chef. As I practiced baking every day, my stomach aches got worse, and the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. After my 27 years of abdominal anguish, with false diagnoses ranging from heartburn to IBS to pancreatic cancer, I found out that all along I'd had celiac disease (an autoimmune condition that attacks the lining of the small intestine). Yes, I could have saved myself all those stomachaches by not eating bread. By the time I discovered the celiac disease, I was already managing bipolar, Asperger's, fibromyalgia, and Hashimoto's. To treat the celiac I made a simple (well, not so simple) diet change to avoid all gluten, and felt so much better. I was completely pain-free for the first time in my life. My maintenance treatment became a matter of taking an anti-epileptic drug and a thyroid replacement hormone, being really proficient at DBT skills, and not eating gluten.
But I had no idea what to do next.
I've always been very ambitious. Yet being so sick for so long has changed my priorities, my options, and my abilities. I don't want my most amazing life accomplishment to be that I got better. Most "survivors" become advocates for their illnesses to create meaning, which could be a great idea because my conditions are either only very recently defined or still poorly understood. But which condition do I choose? For now, I write product descriptions from home for an online retailer, which I'm good at and enjoy, but don't necessarily find existentially fulfilling.
So I got pregnant. Amazingly, I'm having a normal pregnancy. My doctor wasn't planning on doing an ultrasound until 20 weeks, but I begged and got one at 10 weeks. A recognizable baby danced onto the screen and the technician said, "Everything looks perfect. What were you so worried about?" I wept.
Sometime in October, I will give birth to my triumph over adversity in the most tangible way possible. I'll be 28. However, I don't want my son to be a mere symbol of my success. He should be his own person, free to make his own choices and mistakes, without being burdened by the task of redeeming my failures.
At some point, Mommy needs to find her own life, but for the time being it will be refreshing just to have the ability to care for someone else instead of the other way around. While I also don't want my most amazing life accomplishment to be having a child, I think that creating a new human may be awesome enough for right now.
Jessica Franke lives in Omaha with her husband, two dogs, two cats, and expanding pregnant belly. Her baby boy is due in October.
-
- |
-
- |
- |
- 8
I received the following piece yesterday from Stephanie Casey of Fountain Valley, Calif., and decided to put it up straight away (with apologies to those still waiting to see their pieces run.) Stephanie writes that only 19 months ago her dreams for her family's future were shattered when she called the doctor to ask about a seemingly mild symptom. What struck me about the way she tells her story—beyond her courage—is her attention to the practical details. She deals with her crisis by figuring out how to make the most of what she has. Her reaction makes her story inspirational and I am really grateful that she shared it.
In January 2008, my husband and I were making big plans. Our daughter was about to turn two, and we were thinking about making her a brother or sister. We were finally looking to purchase our first home, and I was enrolling in a graduate program part-time.
Our lives were great, moving along according to plan. Then one morning, I woke up with the left side of my face numb. I wasn't paralyzed; I just couldn’t feel the left side of my face. I blew it off for a few days. I'd had the flu the week before and I imagined it was a sinus problem. When it had not gone away after a couple of weeks, I called my doctor, and she sent me over to the ER, to make sure that I had not had a mini-stroke. As a 30-year-old woman on the pill, a stroke was not totally out of the realm of possibility. We dropped our daughter off at grandma's at 6:00 p.m. on a Monday night, thinking we would be home by 10:00 p.m. or so. Little did we know.
At the ER I was immediately taken into a room. Apparently a possible stroke is something they don't mess around with. We were told by a physician's assistant that my fifth cranial nerve appeared not to be functioning, and that it was probably a sinus problem, so he was going to send me home. However, the neurologist attached to my medical plan decided to do a CT scan before releasing me. An hourlong wait and a cold scan in a big machine later, we were approached by the head of the ER. She said she was going to admit me because something had been on my CT scan and she wanted to do an MRI in the morning. We were still laughing, thinking it was a mini-stroke from being on the pill. I told my husband that I was going to have to start employing abstinence as birth control instead, and we made a joke about multiple brothers and sisters for our little girl. He went home and I settled in for the night.
After a bad night's sleep at the hospital, I had my MRI. Then in walked the person who changed my life, my new neurologist, who dropped the bomb on my husband and me: I had multiple sclerosis. Sitting in that room, I felt like I had been run over by a train. The next week or so was a blur. I was attached to an IV steroid drip five hours per day for five days just to stop the current inflammation. (Luckily, they could do that at my home.) I began researching medications and learning about the realities of my disease. Suddenly, little problems that I'd had for years made sense. Stupid things, like a tingling foot for a week or the weird ice-water-is-being-poured-on-my-back feeling I get when I arch my back, now had an explanation. I was terrified. After a longer meeting with my neurologist, I had a prescription and some tips on managing my care.
Suddenly the large house we were looking at (brand new, in a desert-ish community, and within our price range but a longer commute for my husband) seemed like a bad idea. The average temperature there was in the high 90s for five months of the year, and people with MS aren't supposed to get hot. The 45-minute commute was fine, but we'd be living more than an hour from my in-laws. They were our only support structure who could watch my daughter when I needed to have a steroid treatment, or was hospitalized, or had an attack.
The automatic saving plan we'd set up for college and retirement went out the window when we learned that the medication, a self-injectable nightmare, would cost $2,500 per month, of which we had to pay 30 percent, a staggering $750 per month. The plans for another baby slipped through my fingers like smoke. We can never know how long I will be healthy and able to care for my children. The average length of time for an MS patient from diagnosis to wheelchair is 15 years. I can't see knowingly putting a child into the position of having to care for her disabled parent. We also can't know how long I will be able to work, or what my future medical costs will be. We can only assume that they will be astronomical under the current medical system.
We ended up in a smaller house near the coast and only 10 minutes from our family—not the original plan, but we love it. We set up a home office in what would have been baby number two's nursery, and I continue to work from home, providing me with a small steady income with health insurance. We plan family vacations in not-too-hot places that require hiking, walking, and being active, because I want to do those things while I still can. I want my daughter to remember me active and healthy. You can often find us in the early evening when the sun is going down playing soccer in the park or going on bug-hunts in the foothills. My husband has been my rock, and I am grateful for him every day. Our life is different, but not worse. I consider myself lucky. I have a relatively mild case of MS and I'm getting the best treatment possible. The most important thing, I try to remember, is that this disease does not define me or my life. I can either let it defeat me or I can let it make me a better person. I have chosen to be a better person because of it.
Stephanie Casey is a part-time data analyst and a full-time stay at home mom, living in Fountain Valley, CA. She has relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, and is currently in remission.
Photograph courtesy of Stephanie Casey.
-
- |
-
- |
- |
- 14
When Reina Victoria was laid off last week, she faced a pile of bills for medical treatment without the means to pay them. Her husband, Ari, also recently became unemployed. The two have no financial stability and Reina has a dangerous condition that will force her to take blood thinners for the rest of her life. She describes her situation below. If anyone has ideas or helpful suggestions for Reina, please post them in the comments section. And if anyone else has been laid off and wants to write about it, send your post to me: emma@thecomebackbook.com.
I knew it was coming.
Everyone thought I was being ridiculous when I said that I would lose my job. I worked for a national company, and was well-liked for the work I did. But the signs had been there for six weeks. So when the president of my company called me in along with my sales rep, Ann, to see him and the HR person, I knew that it meant one thing: layoffs. My entire department was disappearing.
"This is nothing personal," he said to us. "We just need to reduce the company's overhead." That meant getting rid of the people who had been hired as part of a merger that had taken place 13 months before—four full-timers and three part-time people.
I had already deliberated the possibilities the previous night, after an hour of blissfully distracting yoga. Two weeks beforehand, I had been diagnosed with yet another blood clot. Five-and-a-half years ago, I'd had five blood clots (three of which were in my lungs), and was found to have a genetic factor that made me prone to these clots. After I'd finished treatment, the doctor said to me, "One more clot, and you're done"—meaning I would have to be on blood thinner medication for the rest of my life.
I was able to avoid the hospital this time around, but I had spent hundreds of dollars on my recovery. I went through seven days worth of shots. Although the doctor gave me several samples to use, each shot, which lasted for 12 hours, cost around $90, even with insurance. I had—and still have—to visit the doctor multiple times to make sure my blood levels are normal so I don't clot again or bleed to death. I’m paying for this with money my husband Ari and I don't have: He's been unemployed since December.
The night before I was laid off, Ari thought I was being neurotic. "There's no way they would let you go," he said to me. I loved my company and the people I worked with so much. I wish he'd been right.
After I packed my piles of stuff from my office, cried with former co-workers, and hit the road, I came home to Ari—who, with his money-centric mind, had already started thinking about a budget. It was certainly better than when I first called him, when he'd seemed to hyperventilate.
"It's going to be like when you were out of work the last time," he said. He was referring to two years ago, when I decided, a month before our wedding , to quit working for a horrible boss. We have savings, but when I was unemployed the last time, we went through almost all of them and had to completely rebuild—not an easy task when one person is not making any money.
It seems strange that since we have been married, we have had zero financial stability. Except for two months of our 21-month marriage, either I have been unemployed, he has been unemployed, or we were anticipating his unemployment (before he was laid off, Ari worked for an insurance company).
Now we were both unemployed, sharing the lone computer. Every couple of hours, we would trade use of it for our respective job hunts. We spent time with friends and my parents. Everyone told us things would be fine.
Then Sunday came, and Ari picked up Friday's and Saturday's mail. I saw the big pile of bills. Cable, cell phones, electricity—and the statement from the ultrasound I had on my leg to find the blood clot. The actual bill will come next week. That stack is like something out of a nightmare. Not only are there the normal bills, but we haven’t yet received bills for all the medication I’ve taken.
Later that day at a brunch, I ran into my yoga teacher. He asked what I was doing, and I told him about all the projects I was thinking about taking on in my unemployment—freelance editing projects, some ghostwriting, and getting back to work on a pet project.
"Well, you have a good attitude," he said. "That's what counts."
I smiled as the California sun shone down. Even though we have had financial problems, Ari and I will find a way to survive. You just have to go to the light. Two roads are coming together at this moment—the road to my wellness and the road to our financial stability. I don't know which one will end first for us. But at least we will be together in our journey.
Reina Victoria is a freelance editor and writer in Long Beach, Calif., who is still looking for work.
Photograph of Reina and her husband courtesy of Reina Victoria.
-
- |
-
- |
- |
- 2
It’s a truth, universally acknowledged by our elders who know better, that all the planning in the world will not give you the life you end up living. Life has a way of tripping you up as you go about your day. How many times have you planned something, only to have the unforeseen derail you?
I’ve been wondering about this recently as we discuss the state of our health care system, and by extension the state of our health. So often it is ill health that delivers an unexpected blow and forces us to change our plans. Serious or chronic illnesses do more than force us to cancel a holiday or scramble for childcare. They can alter the very paths of our lives.
This theme has been making itself felt in the e-mails from readers I’ve been receiving over the last couple of weeks. You'll see some of the responses this week. Cat Baab wrote in response to a question about how marriage has changed her. When you read her post, below, you’ll see that it wasn’t just her marriage that forced the change.
If you’ve had your life turned upside down by an unexpected health issue and you want to share your experience, write to me at emma@thecomebackbook.com. You, or someone close to you, might have been ill, might have had an accident, might even have had a false diagnosis. Tell me your story and I’ll put it up here.
If, on a February evening, you happen to run into your old high school boyfriend (whom you haven’t seen in the eight years since you broke up) at the T.G.I. Friday’s in your hometown, at a time when you have just moved back from Singapore and are about to go to Chile, your engagement two days later will involve a lot of hysterical laughter. Or so it happened with me.
I’d never expected to see Chris again—at least, not if I could avoid it. Our high school break-up had been terrible. I wanted nothing to do with him or with Short Pump, Va. The winter of 2006, I was sleeping in my old bedroom in my parents’ house there; it was, I thought, a temporary arrangement. My bags were still packed, ready. I was 24 years old. I’d returned from one overseas adventure and was anxious for the new one to begin.
But what I got was an entirely different adventure. Chris called me two nights after that run-in. We met for a drink. Afterward, he showed me the house he’d recently bought and moved into—a one-story place with two large, empty bedrooms at one end and a large, empty sunroom at the other end. The tour done, he asked, “What do you think?”
I said, “I think we should get married.”
He said he thought so, too. We kissed: the happy (I’ve found you), the sad (I’ve missed you), the at-last, blissed-out kiss. We drank more drinks and planned how we would get married right away, move to Chile together. It’d be a ball, a total lark. My mother called to see how my evening with my old friend was going. Laughing, we told her the news.
The next morning I woke in my old bedroom. The first thought that occurred to me was that prehaps Chris had changed his mind. It terrified me, but I could understand. So I sent him a text to let him know how things stood with me. I wrote, “I still love you this morning.”
A few seconds later, he responded, “I still love you every morning.”
My parents and I drew up the guest list over breakfast.
Then, a few weeks before the wedding, his mother suddenly became ill. She had always been healthy—she was 59 years old, at the top of her career—but now she was in the hospital. The diagnosis was terminal cancer, and we were told to expect her death. It was shattering news. Still, we kept going with our plans; to stop seemed to mean we accepted that she would die.
We visited her in the cancer unit just before the ceremony. Our wedding video shows her getting out of the bed, shaky on her feet, hospital bracelets round her wrists, to embrace us. Chris hugs her, his stepfather hugs her, they cry with her. I pause for a moment outside the circle, my back to the camera.
I am a long way from Santiago, and I won’t be getting there any time soon. Our married life is going to be different from the one we’d planned, and this is the moment I allow myself before the change is complete. Few brides’ experience, I think, must be so literal. But there it is, in grainy video: I step forward to support my husband, to join his family, in the most painful circumstances. I put my arms around them. I grow up.
An endnote: We celebrated our third wedding anniversary this past June. We haven’t moved to Chile yet, but we did spend last year in New Zealand, where I was in graduate school and Chris worked the front desk at The New Zealand Herald. His mother, thank goodness, is in remission after receiving a stem cell transplant. Right now, she and her husband are on a month-long cruise around Alaska. We rent out the house. We have a very close, loving marriage. I still have the habit of referring to him by his first and last name, like he’s someone I used to know and who must be distinguished by last name.
Photograph of sick woman by Stockbyte/Getty Images.
Comments