It’s 2:30am on Friday, January 23rd and I’m slumped up against the wall in my upstairs hallway, unable to fully sit up. I’m hooked up to an EKG machine. There are eight firefighters in my house. A paramedic is on the way. 

Not ten minutes before, I had woken up to use the bathroom—but couldn’t get back to bed because of a level of pain, across my chest and through my whole body, that I had never felt before.

I dropped to my knees.
I felt hot.

I crawled down the hallway and knocked on the door of the room my brother was sleeping in. He had come to dog-sit while I had a work gig.

Oh—and to accompany me to a colonoscopy.
The one that was supposed to rule out anything serious.

“I need you to call 911,” I said to him, “something is wrong.”

The firefighters found me lying back on the floor of my bathroom.
Neither my brother nor I remember how I got back there.

And now, there I was, slumped up against the wall in my hallway, unable to fully sit up. 

The week before I had been in Charlottesville, for work.
The last time I would work, it turns out. 

My co-worker Katy had finished delivering her talk on mental performance. She came over to ask how I was. She had heard the news—about the stage 0 breast cancer. That’s all we knew at the time. Even then we knew it was going to be a several months-long recovery.

“You’re going to have to ask for help,” she told me.

It took a few back-and-forths—me acknowledging I don’t do that. I’m the helper. Helpers don’t ask for help—before she pulled out that age-old technique mental health pros use: reframing.

“People want to help, Alli,” she said. “What if you think about it like you’re giving them an opportunity to help? Let them help you.”

Fair point, Katy.

And there I was the next week, slumped in my hallway, surrounded by eight firefighters–with a paramedic on the way—refusing to go to the emergency room.

“I’m fine,” I said.
To eight firefighters.
In my house.
At 2:30 in the morning.

But something was deeply wrong.

And Katy wasn’t the only one who saw right through me.

Just days earlier, I was forty-five minutes into a 151-degree infrared sauna session with a new friend Andrew, a ‘former’ Marine, discussing my recent health news when he asked me, “Can you ask for help?” 

My head dropped.

I paused. 

“Can I?” I responded. “Yes—I can do anything. But I don’t do that. I don’t ask for help. I’m the helper.”

“You need to ask for help,” he said.

But Andrew was a new friend. What the hell did he know about me? I could beat cancer on my own, I thought.

Which is insane.

And it’s also insane to tell the eight firefighters who are standing in your house at 2:30am that you are fine when you can barely sit up and they have you hooked up to an EKG to make sure your heart is working—even if your mind is not.

They knew better than to listen to me.

They were waiting for the paramedic to arrive.

Amy.
Her name was Amy.

I don’t remember much about what happened once Amy arrived. But I do remember her standing and looking down at me when she asked me what was going on. 

I wasn’t sure. 

She kept asking me if I wanted to go to the ER.
And no—I did not want to go to the fucking ER.

I remember her asking what I had done that day.

Well. I had an MRI breast biopsy, with contrast.
(For that third area of suspicion in my breast.)
And another MRI with contrast—pelvic.
(For the tumor they just found inside me.)
And two CT scans. With contrast.
(To see if anything had metastasized, it turns out.)

And I had a colonoscopy the day before.
It was late.
I had gone 46 hours without eating.. 

“But I’m fine!” I chirped at her, acutely aware of the hot medic to my right and how I was wearing my least attractive pyjamas. “I’m fine, Amy.”

“You are not fine,” she said.

I am not fine.

“That’s a lot for one body.” she said.

I told her, again
I’m fine. 

She told me even if I think I’m fine, the body remembers.

I told her I knew that.
I teach that.

Go into my office and grab the fucking book.

She said if I didn’t go to the ER, my husband—a big guy—could throw me over his shoulder and take me.

“That’s my brother!” I shouted, “I’m divorced.”

(Again, acutely aware of the hot medic—whose gloved hands made it impossible to check for a ring.)

Sometimes Amy just stared at me.
I would stare back.

“I’m fine, Amy, I got this.”

“You are not fine,” she said.

Eventually, they got me standing and she dismissed the firefighters.

She said she could walk out the door—and if I changed my mind, they would come right back and take me to the ER.

At that point, I felt safe.
I felt seen.
I felt heard.

They got me into bed but Amy didn’t leave. She stood at the foot of my bed petting my dog, watching me. 

I don’t remember what she said during that time.

But I remember exactly what she said before she walked out my door—and I never saw her again:

“You’re going to have to let people help you.”