COVID & Cancer & Suicide
The pandemic had been in full swing for almost a year when I was diagnosed. For a short time, COVID wasn’t the scariest thing in my life. It did complicate things, though. Going through chemo and COVID at the same time was surreal. Chemo kills cancer, but it kills everything else, too, and it weakens your immune system. So, contracting COVID could be deadly, or deadlier, I should say. I needed the vaccine, but everything was so uncertain and chaotic that it was hard to find a site that wasn’t across the state or in the city. Because of my cancer and my immune system being compromised, I was able to go to Albany, which is an hour or so drive. It was also tricky to schedule, as I couldn’t have it the week I had my chemo. But I finally got it and the booster.
Time seemed to stop during the pandemic. We were discouraged from going anywhere in public, and if you did, you had to maintain a “social distance” from others and wear your mask over your nose and mouth. As the world closed down, people sat by their televisions and radios waiting for news. I spent my days trying to stay busy and listening to NPR and local news stations for updates. During this time, I had Stacey and Brian living with me. Neither could work. Stacey was sick and in the end stages of his alcoholism, and all of Brian’s shows were cancelled. I was able to keep my job because my boss took the pandemic relief package and kept us all employed, thankfully. I felt that I had to share what I had and pay it forward, and that is what I did.
It was an incredibly stressful time. Stacey ended up going down south to be with his childhood friend. He really needed to be in a long-term rehab, but he had already been through so many before. There was nothing more I could do for him, and we both knew it. I don’t know if it was God who intervened on that one, but whatever divine intervention it was, I was grateful. Watching your brother kill himself is almost impossible to take when it is right in front of you, so his going away, out of my sight, brought relief but guilt, always guilt. It is still just a waiting game; it’s on your mind, but it’s not in your face every day. You’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop, the cops pulling up to your door to deliver the news, that dreaded phone call in the middle of the night. It leaves you constantly on edge and in a state of dread, with your fight-or-flight response ready to kick in. And this was my third time going through it. God, at least, spared me the actual pathetic end. I never saw my brother again. I prefer to remember him as the beautiful human being he was before.
Brian was around more than ever in those days. Losing all of his work and his income sent him into a deep state of anxiety. He had major depressive disorder with anxiety, which he was medicated for, and this sent him into a severe depressive spiral. But ever the cheerleader, I listened to the news and town halls and coaxed and coerced him to go on the Department of Labor website and sign up for unemployment insurance. He was impatient and hard-headed about it because he was self-employed and didn’t think he would get it. I kept telling him, and he kept fighting me. I listened to our congressman, Antonio Delgato, tell us that they were working on the website and to keep trying. I had to walk on eggshells to get him to do it, but it paid off; he finally filed his claim. He collected thousands in arrears for all the months he had been out of work. This was a Godsend for him as his van had bitten the dust, and this money enabled him to buy a new one for his business. And that fall, things started easing up a little.
I hardly had time to fully appreciate my new home when my brother Colin committed suicide the week after I moved in. That was March of 2018. It sent my family reeling. Suicide. Wow. Colin was also an alcoholic and drug addict who lived in California with his wife, so it was hard to support him. He was a very sensitive and troubled man, and he had been struggling for a long time. I had talked to him about coming back east and staying with me in my new house until he got himself together, so this was a complete shock. In 2019, I started journaling as a way to sort out my feelings and my life situation. I journaled all through 2019 and 2020. Looking back at those posts, I see how unhappy and stuck I felt. The last post in 2020 was on October 26, and I talked about my copywriting. I had been formulating samples for my writing folder. I didn’t journal again until September 29, 2021.
I am mentioning all of this, not for sympathy but to set the stage for understanding how my reconing came about and the stressful life events that kicked it all off. 2021 was a year like no other, and it sorely tested my sanity and my health. 2022 was a year of respite and acceptance, and many good things came flooding in after a shit ton of bad. It was as if the universe were saying, “See, I still love you.” Here’s your new life. I could actually eat and enjoy food. My hair started growing back, my black toenails grew out, and I gained some weight. My friend took me on a beautiful trip to Sicily, and I started a new job at Moxie Lighting. But I was still so traumatized by such heavy things that I was in a state of disassociation, and it was hard to find enjoyment in my good fortune. I couldn’t feel happiness. All I felt was a deep sadness, and I cried myself to sleep often. Sometimes I felt like I would drown in those tears. Dramatic life events had wounded me, and I needed help. Like Andy Dufrane in Shawshank Redemption said, “you can get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’” I got busy.