In Sickness and In Health

Being there for your people can mean a lot of things. And after a series of mysterious ailments sent me to the hospital last year, I was able to witness this first hand. After years of speculation, I was diagnosed with thoracic endometriosis in 2021. The disease—which is rare, understudied and progressive—causes endometrial-like tissue to grow on one’s lungs and diaphragm. For me, this growth resulted in back-to-back-to-back lung collapses, six in total. Cardiac arrest could soon follow. Finding a solution was critical.

Stuck in the hospital, day-after-day during the height of the pandemic, I was only allowed one visitor. Most days, that visitor was my father, a retired, former restaurant manager who ended up spending more time with me during those few weeks hooked up to IVs and oxygen than he had since I was a child.

I had always assumed that the person who would be there for me during a time of crisis would be my mother or my sister. And although they were able to visit when time and work and circumstances allowed them to do so, it was my father's unwavering determination and belief in my physical, mental and spiritual fortitude that helped me finally begin to heal. I know this to be true.

Every day, he brought a Scrabble set and we played atop the in-room dining table I typically used to eat my meals.

“S-T-R-E-N-G-T-H. Strength,” he spelled.

“Good word,” I said.

“Oh, absolutely!” he replied. “That's just what we have in this family. That's just what we do. We always see it through.”

And I did. Two weeks and four surgeries and months of physical therapy, I made it through.

Sometimes, in the thick of the madness, it is other people who pull us up again. That is something to remember for the individual in the moment, but also something for those within a support system to remember as well. Your presence is a present. Being there is a power itself.