I Was Supposed To Die... But I'm Still Here.

 

“Wait. You never told your husband?” She queried.

 “No. Never.” I replied.

“You never told your husband?” She repeated the question as her eyes grew bigger.

“No. I figured it wasn’t worth it. Plus, you’re one of the first people I’ve told and only recently. I figure I’m good now.” I added.

She stood there stunned in my dining room, as we’d been going off topic discussing my suggestions for her book format yesterday. Her, someone who’d met me in late 1999, before both of us had become parents, yet we were both married. I had become most successful in my business and she was building hers.

Now, our daughters were the same ages within months of each other. We had similar experiences in our childhoods and as well in our parenting. And yes, Norm and I had a good marriage. Especially, as I’d taken notice over the decades in our over 36-year marriage that ended physically in his death, coming in on six years soon. You never know what a good marriage is until you hear others’ complaints during your marriage and after one of you is now only in spirit, and you refuse to take off your wedding band because you still feel married on some level.

“There’s stuff I never told my husband. Yet I never told anyone else either.” I’d remarked to her.

She, still stunned. Looked at me. My friend, a psychologist, I never felt judged by her because we’re friends. We’ve shared some of the most intimate thoughts in our near long-distance friendship. It was as our families lived too far apart, and our daughters had so many outside of the home functions. Never mind all four of our daughters strove for great grades, high achievers they are. So, after over a decade of disconnect, we reconnected on the hottest day of 2025 in a small Thai restaurant after my call to her days before on the weekend prior to that hot day in New Jersey, we then met.

We’d both had gone through tumultuous times in our childhoods, as well in our most recent adulthood lives. Aside from various similarities we’re both tough. She may not see it that way; however, I do. We appear different, as she is quite most feminine, appearing gentle, a soft touch kind of person. Conversely, I appear to want to rip your head off as I peel a pear with a knife and eat the slice off of the knife. However, I’ve not let anyone see me actually do that. That is as I try hard to role model for our daughters and not wanting to scare the crap out of my husband when he was alive.

So, I digress back to her and my conversation about why I hadn’t expressed the potential to my possible death at around my 23^rd birthday. Yes, I was married then. We’d been married nearly 18 months at that point. I’d finished my committed active time in the Marines and wanted to matriculate to a nearby college. So, I needed a full medical exam in order to matriculate.

After the medical exam, I decided not to accept my husband’s parents’ doctor’s diagnosis. That day as I’d driven home alone from the appointment that autumn in the late afternoon, driving through Paterson, my heart fluttered. I wondered if this was it. The final warning. I pulled my car over on Chamberlain Avenue. I calmed me down and spoke to myself out loud, “He’s young. He could always remarry. We don’t have children yet. We’re renting an apartment, no mortgage. He’ll be fine. I’m running that marathon and whatever happens, happens. I’m doing something I love. Best way to go.” I then sighed, felt better, signaled and pulled away from the curb and drove the rest of the way home. About three weeks later, I raced the New York City Marathon, placing 51^st woman overall and first New Jersey woman that day. I improved my time by 27 minutes as well.

Over the coming months, I increased from 80 miles of running per week to 100-110 miles of running per week. I battled sesamoiditis in both feet, severe achilles tendonitis in both legs, a pulled hamstring and severe plantar fasciitis to the point I ventured to reading medical books and built my own orthotics for training and my next 26.2 miler in May 1986. Yes I, an accounting student, office worker, US Marine and former truck and tractor trailer driver was reading up on foot structure. I’d already decided to believe in prayer before believing in white men in white coats.

The sciatic nerve pain nearly crippled me; however, after overcoming two weeks off running for sesamoiditis, the orthopedic surgeon threatened to do surgery taking both sesamoids out of both of my big toes, and three days off for achilles tendonitis. I decided it was time to forge ahead no matter what. The next ten weeks, I’d grind out the miles through the rest of the winter into the spring of 1986. It was said that one could not run a personal best in a marathon with a pulled hamstring. I was like, ‘Hold my bottled water and my Verde cassette tape.’. And I ran another six minutes faster than I’d ever run the 26.2-mile distance with that pulled hamstring, the sciatic nerve issue, along with my foot issues and homemade orthotics.

Pained, yes. Crippled mostly by my left foot, hamstring and sciatic nerve pain for six weeks of no running after the race. I saw three doctors, one gave me the best answer, “Walk till you feel better and put a lift in the heel of your shoes. You’ll be fine.” Everyone else in the medical field shook their heads and told me to quit. But what do you expect from white men in white coats, when a diminutive woman like me seems to challenge their manhood with my running. It now makes me laugh at them. What small men with small minds.

I battled foot issues since I could remember as a child. I battled hip pains since at least age six. I battled odd pains in so many places in my body. There were scary moments, I was encouraged to ‘suck-it-up’, for I was only a girl, then only a woman. Nearly no one knew how much I had been ‘sucking-it-up’. I’d been warned in the summer of 1977 by our new family doctor who I didn’t like. My brother and my mother liked the guy, but me? “Meh.” Not so much.

So came that day in August 1977 as I sat on the exam table with legs dangling and my mother by my side. The doctor rolled up on his stool, smiling after he’d completed my exam so I could go run that coming school year for cross-country, winter and spring track seasons.

“Well.” He began as he smiled looking at me. “Your pulse is awfully low. You have a heart-murmur. It’s okay for now, but not for later.” My mother’s reaction, “Oh!” He continued to smile, nodded to her and then looked back at me and continued, “But I know, when you turn 18, you’ll meet a nice young man, get married and have babies. And you’ll forget all about this running. So, you’ll be fine.” I have to say, as much as I didn’t blink and said nothing, I did want to strangle him.

My mother sighed as if relieved. Soon we were out of the doctor’s office and back in mom’s car. She started the engine; then said, “Well, young lady. I think, you’re still going to be running when you’re 65.” I nodded in her certainty, and we drove home.

Over the years much transpired. Yet the medical field stayed moot, forgetting to put important notes in my charts and so forth. So, I kept my mouth shut, because if they didn’t think it was important, when I knew it was, then I wasn’t important. They’d get paid and I’d move along, knowing deep inside where I stood with my life. I knew I might always be on the brink of not existing. Being in the Marines was easy, as I was settled with the possible ultimate contemplation of my life ending sooner than later.

It took me till the end of 1998 to find the right internist for myself. He was a runner and so was his wife. He actually wanted my opinion on things I thought about, like nutrition, anesthetics, pain, running and medicine. One of the few white men in white coats who actually had some form of respect for me and my health.

Women of color with white coats listened to me. Men of color too in white coats listened to me. I quite rarely felt slighted in the medical field by anyone of color, or who varied in sexual identity. Conversely the minute I saw a blond headed woman in a white coat, nurse or doctor I knew it was time to play dumb. It’s just what I happened to run into, whether their blond hair was dyed or not.

The current issue with medicine in having an annual exam is that now, the internal medical business has become more of a conglomerate. Many offices are now owned or salaried by hospitals, or better yet by some company out of Texas that now controls a New Jersey hospital along with connected doctor’s offices that are involved and appear to be separate entities but are not.

What I’ve witnessed in the past decade is how these medical staff that have been hired by the doctor’s offices are using cookie-cutter verbiage and coercion that is based on the age of their patients. They’re not practicing medicine as my old internist had. I’d witnessed my internist get upset seeing these ‘new’ nurse conglomerate types did not know how to read my breathing tests, my ekg/ecgs and so forth. Yes, he read and had heard that they ripped the breathing apparatus out of my mouth and hand because ‘they’ thought I was done breathing out of my mouth. I wasn’t. Just because they couldn’t hear my expired breathing doesn’t mean I was done with the test.

My pulse is naturally low, which is healthy and normal for me. Too, I’ve had an enlarged heart for decades. I’ve had other exams that I paid out of pocket in cash and kept those results from all my regular attending physicians. That includes scans and diagnoses that showed I should be dead from something else one of them was way over a decade ago. I bypassed all the recommended treatments, got another scan a year later, the problem resolved itself and it cleared without allopathic medicines desired interventions. For the umpteenth time, I was supposed to die… But I’m still here.

After decades of having felt the alienation from the allopathic medical field due to the womanhood that wasn’t woman-ness enough for the allopathic medical field, they’ve lost me. I still pay into health insurance, which is astronomical. I do that for our children. Nearing age 64, I’m running outside whether it’s 130 degrees or below zero. I know not to have multiple piercings, no tattoos, no flu shots, limit use to OTCs, and if needed call my physician to give him the ‘heads-up’ if I have to take more than one ibuprofen, last time 2017. It’s not that I hadn’t run into health issues, its that I monitor my diet closely, and I answer to an even higher-source with my self-care and prayers.---Jody-Lynn Reicher