With all of my health challengees during a pandemic, how could I heal?

A year into my health journey, I think so.

The last time I needed to heal

I don’t remember exactly how long it took to replenish the well, but it didn’t happen overnight. My dad was sympathetic, but he told me that the fight for racial justice would continue and that I had one day to mope before I had to move on.

I didn’t know it then, but my desire and ability to heal from emotional and physical setbacks was crucial to how I live a meaningful and satisfying life. As I was healing, I was developing a blueprint that I will probably follow for the rest of my life.

My well ran dry again

It’s been nearly a decade since Martin’s death, and I found myself looking up the definition of healing in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary: “To make free from injury or disease; to make sound or whole; to patch up or correct; to restore to original purity or integrity. “

The prompt? My unexpected health issues caused my well to run dry again.

My medicine wasn’t working well

The road to recovery has been bumpy — and, in the middle of all it, I fell and broke my collarbone during a run, and had surgery to repair it.

And then, a recent visit to my hematologist revealed that one of my medications was not working as well as I thought or hoped.

My hematologist is one of my favorite caregivers. During a normal checkup, we talk about exercise, his kids, my siblings. Once we catch up, he’ll explain my latest test results and check vitals, always with a succinct yet relaxed delivery.

I was alarmed when our banter was short this time. He straightened his smile and his tone transitioned to serious in a way I’d never heard. He didn’t try to frame the disappointing news as “nothing to worry about until we know it’s a trend” like he normally does.

Straight up, no chaser, he told me that my eosinophil levels were higher than expected and that my current medication was not sustainable over the long term. The longer I stay on it, especially at the high dose I was on, the more likely other major health issues would arise — like osteoporosis and high blood pressure.

That’s when the floor and whatever else was keeping my spirits up, fell out from under me. If this man was worried, then so was I.

The appointment lasted all of 15 minutes, but I walked away with a heavy head, processing that my illness was potentially not “beatable.” It was mine to keep. And to manage it, I would need to get on a new medication: a “safe,” but disruptive, hard-to-pronounce pill with a bevy of potential undesirable side effects including a warning to avoid pregnancy because it could cause birth defects.

Calling on my team for support

I’m lucky and grateful to have access to quality healthcare and insurance to deal with this illness. But being diagnosed with a rare condition I’d never heard of and that has no clear cause or cure, also feels unfair and so unsatisfying. But since marching in protest against HES probably wouldn’t do much good, I resorted to another part of my recovery playbook – calling on my Dad, my spirituality, my friends and my care team for support.

Since the heart attack, I see this group as family. They give me pep talks before procedures, they make me laugh, and they listen to me cry and complain as I come to terms with being breakable. I celebrate my victories with them, and if anything happens to me, I want them at my funeral (not to be grim, just prepared).

Making sense of my new reality

Fortunately, I’m way more preoccupied with restoring my health and my well than dying. This is in large part because of my squad. They’re inspiring and they’re helping me grow my healing toolbox.

A dear uncle reminds me that worrying about all the terrible things might happen is not super useful, and reassures me that I am being monitored by a good care team. He sends me inspirational stories and cute emojis when I feel down. A close cousin has been helping me research potential causes and treatments for HES. And my father keeps advising, “Focus on what you can control.”

He’s a man of faith. In an uplifting tone he manages to harness every time I need to hear it most, he tells me to choose my attitude and do something, anything, that makes me happy.

It’s good dad advice. I realized that since the diagnosis, I’ve been so focused on beating this thing — seeing all the right doctors, taking all the pills, and eating all the right food that will “cure me” — that my happiness has been secondary.

Moving the goalposts

After nearly a year of dealing with HES, I realize there are levels to healing. Sometimes it’s being fixed and cured, and sometimes it’s just learning to manage things so I don’t hurt myself or die.

That’s why I’ve decided to move my goalposts, from getting back to the way things were to investing in a new, stronger normal. And I’m no longer pursuing a healthy lifestyle just to avoid tragedies (because I obviously can’t) but to survive them and live well in spite of them. I’m going to keep praying, working with my care team and leaning on my friends and family for support.

But I’m also accepting that there are questions that may never get answers, and that my team and I are probably going to get some things wrong. I expect to cry from time to time and feel a lot of emotions that aren’t normal for me. But I will accept how I feel, and not beat myself up for how I don’t.

I’m also prioritizing my happiness and diversifying my joy. I’ve been working on passion projects (like writing this essay), running, lifting weights and drawing. And I celebrate when things go well — like when I feel good, when I have normal eosinophil levels, and when I manage to talk about what’s going with my health without crying.

That’s my blueprint, and it’s why I’m cautiously optimistic about 2022. It will mark the start of year three of the pandemic and the tenth anniversary of Martin’s death. There is pain and progress to assess. There may be more questions than answers. There will likely be setbacks and unexpected and unwanted changes.

Yet I am strangely encouraged by the traumas we have survived together these last couple of years and how we can get stronger from our collective and individual experiences.

As I head into 2022, I am reminded of the work of George Bonanno, professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University and author of “The End of Trauma: How the New Science of Resilience is Changing How We Think of PTSD.” He says that many people experience severe trauma in their lifetime but get through it and move on. He says that most of us are resilient in this way.

And just knowing that, is part of healing, too.