I’m feeling all the feels today.
I started hormone therapy for breast cancer three days ago, and as I wake each day, anxiously awaiting the impending side effects I’ve been warned of, I’m deeply grieving everything they’ve told me I’ll lose upon being thrust into medical menopause. It’s disorienting trying to feel present while my life takes yet another uncharted course; each moment feels more precious and foreign than the prior one. I’m not comfortable being in the position of staring down my mortality or quality of life again, but at least this time around I have the wisdom and vantage point of knowing that the things that threaten to break us can make us more beautiful if we let them.
April 27, 2005
Fifteen years ago this morning, I pushed my chair back from my Midtown New York law office desk, spun around to get up and go use the bathroom, and fell to the floor. Dazed, confused, and embarrassed, I called out to my nearest co-worker for help. We couldn’t figure out what had happened, other than my ankle was suddenly swollen three times its size and I couldn’t bear any weight on it. She kept searching my skin for some kind of spider bite mark, but nothing was visible. The swelling was worse by lunchtime, so my mailroom buddies helped me down to a taxi, and off I went to the hospital. I never saw them again.
I spent the next decade battling rheumatoid arthritis, along with Hashimoto’s disease and a slew of other ailments. (A few years prior to this autoimmune onset, I’d been successfully treated for a pituitary adenoma—a benign brain tumor. And while the four years of heavy-duty pharmaceuticals amazingly rid my brain of the foreign mass, I know now that the toxicity of the treatments altered my body in ways it never recovered from. But that’s another story for another day.)
I lost my job. I lost my singing career. I lost myself. I traded my high heels for orthopedic shoes (once I could finally walk again) and my designer jeans for cheap pants ranging in size from 0 to 20 as my medication-induced weight swings yo-yoed uncontrollably. My once-bustling social life was now confined to the four walls of my apartment and medical waiting rooms, where it seemed I was always the youngest patient by thirty years or so. Worst of all, I lost my rose-colored innocence. Life no longer felt safe and dreams felt too disappointing. I was warned that I’d likely be in a wheelchair by the time I was thirty-five and that I’d never bear biological children—and even if I could, it would be irresponsible to do so, considering I couldn’t physically care for them.
But God had another plan.
Though it was a hard and lonely season, it was also one of monumental growth. I was blessed to have a few special people in my life who saw in me my warrior spirit, surrounded me with love, and guided me in my discovery of how to reframe and find the good. I learned what true friendship looked like. I learned that I was strong, smart, savvy, and able to pivot. I learned about gratitude, holistic healing, and healthy living. And I learned that the best remedy is to love and trust yourself.
But believe me, none of this came easy. And none of it came for free. Loss, grief, and trauma have a way of changing you forever. It’s not always for the best, but it can be for the better. Pain gives you the gift of realness, the gift of clarity, and the gift of what matters.
And it gave me the deepest love and appreciation for the gift who was waiting…
My little love, you are a gift. A miracle. A destiny that was meant to be. Always remember you are filled with love and light, and that your intuition and spirit are more powerful than any conditions placed on you.
I had hoped to give you a sibling, but that doesn’t seem likely now. It’s a deep sadness that weighs heavy on my heart; I know you would have made the most joyful sister. Though if I’ve learned anything, it’s that life is a complex, beautiful maze, and if it’s meant to be, it will be. Somehow.
And I trust that.
I’m listening to: