Survival Sisters

This afternoon I communicated with two sisters, each of whom I taught when they were in High School. Now one of them is a nurse and the other is in dire need of a heart transplant. They are both at a hospital in Boston tonight and they are much on my mind. Two larger than life sisters; creative, sociable, thoughtful, kind and smart who have been there for each other since I first met them years ago.

You see, many of my students have had life threatening diseases; Chron's Disease, Leukemia and a bevy of other Cancers, Diabetes, Hemophilia, Asthma and other chronic respiratory illnesses. Each year I have at least 5 students hospitalized. This does not include elective surgeries or mending torn ligaments or broken bones. I mean organ dissections, cancer removal, blood transfusions, and testing with no definitive diagnosis. One student went from MA hospital all the way to DC a few years ago  to be studied, as no one could figure out why he was chronically ill. I'm also not including mental illness and the hospitalizations that have resulted from that.

Leominster was the birthplace of Plastics. It had been a Super Fund site and it was supposedly dealt with years ago, but there is still a disproportionate number of young people fighting diseases that you'd normally find in people much older. Among the older population, there also seems to be a disproportionate number of cancers (wide varieties) and failing hearts. By "older" I mean 30-60, not old-old (nod and a wink to those above 70).

Each year I teach students that regularly miss large swatches of school due to being ill, doctors visits or, as I stated above, being hospitalized. For some of them it's so chronic and continuous that early in the year the student will confess to me that they are out of school often. I've learned to listen to those kids and get there email and cellphone numbers early (to virtually teach them or tag team them if an out-of-school tutor enters the plan). Some kids are frequently sick or having doctors visits and I never  fully get to the bottom of their illnesses. Sometimes it's seemingly embarrassing (glands, organ and hormone irregularities) and sometimes it's stigmatized illness, like blood diseases, that people don't trust sharing the complete details.

With the two sisters, only one was direly ill. They both had the usual teenage demons and obstacles to over come, but the one sister was strong in spirit but weak in her body. She has been in hospitals more than out of them over the past two years. I touch base with both of them via Facebook, cell calls and when the ill one was working, at Michael's, I'd shop on days I knew she'd be there. The mother is present and active in their lives.

When I first started teaching in Leominster, a nurse-neighbor in Acton told me not to drink the water in Leominster. She said it was the only common denominator for the kind of crazy, inexplicable and profoundly common life-threatening diseases that came from Leominster to the UMass Medical Center where she works in Worcester. I've not had a drink of it, nor have I bought lunch at the cafeteria in the almost decade I've worked in the city.

Tonight two sisters are in a hospital in Boston. Tomorrow one of them will not be receiving the heart transplant she needs, but rather a bridge procedure which involves open-heart surgery. It's called a bivald procedure. It puts two machines on both valves of the heart and is fed electricity by a chord through one's belly button to a battery. If her heart stabilizes, then her youth will be on the side of a possible transplant in 6+- months. Then she could, perhaps, be able to go from surviving to thriving.

 The devices, however, makes a routine life difficult. One has to be close to a charging option at all times. This is a young woman and she's been fighting for a normal life since before I met her (I can't remember how many years ago now 6-7?). The other sister is her rock and helps her focus on the positive, distracts her from her fears and, I believe, became a nurse to be of use to people like her sister.

Now my wish for them both, is that they will be healthy and strong. That they, who are creative, social, smart, generous young woman will be able to one day fulfill their potential and thrive.

Right now, as Master Angelou wrote; "Surviving is Important. Thriving is Elegant."
My wish for them is an elegant future and for the surgery tomorrow to be the first step on that path!

Good Night, Survivors and Thrivers, G'night!