Sharing the Struggle

January has been chaotic and fun and on occasion, a little crazy - it's just been life. Sometimes we take that for granted. We get lost in the hustle and bustle or even in the mundane. Well, maybe you don't, but I know I am guilty of this. I begin and end many days, forgetting to be appreciative of the opportunity to have lived it. 

As I close out January and gear up for National Heart Month, I have good intentions to be more mindful of this gift. It is indeed a treasure - to still be here with my family, to fully live each day, to make new friends, and to work to raise awareness for women's cardiovascular health. 

I have shared my journey with many of you. Some of you have walked it with me. Perhaps even more appropriate, you carried me along the way. Others have supported me from the sidelines and this has been a blessing. Today, I am honored to share the beautiful and brutal words of my dear friend, Rachel D'Souza-Siebert, a heart attack survivor and one of last year's National Go Red for Women spokeswomen. Rachel recently shared about the loss of her friend Rekisha, another National Go Red Woman, and I have to tell you - if her words do not move you, nothing will. 

Thank you, Rachel, for allowing me to share your struggle. There is always so much work to be done. 


"Buried deep as you can dig inside yourself
And hidden in the public eye
Such a stellar monument to loneliness
Laced with brilliant smiles and shining eyes
Perfect make-up, but you're barely scraping by
But you're barely scraping by... 

Well this is one time, well this is one time
That you can't fake it hard enough to please everyone
Or anyone at all...or anyone at all
And the grave that you refuse to leave
The refuge that you've built to flee,
The places that you've come to fear the most,
Is the place that you have come to fear the most." - Dashboard Confessional

 2012 Go Red Photo Shoot: Amy, Rachel, Rekisha, Lidia

Once upon a time, there were 10 of us. The reality of our heart disease and no-bullshit, scream-it- from-the-mountain-tops attitudes brought us together - our paths may never have crossed otherwise. We parroted the same message out into the world:

Heart disease is the number 1 killer of women

 Heart disease kills more people annually than all forms of cancer combined

 Heart disease kills 1 in 3 women

Wanna know what heart disease looks like? Look at me.

We share our stories over and over, in hopes they make a difference - we nag and annoy and repeat and surely, people get sick of listening. It becomes exhausting to share it and exhausting to live it and all you really want to do is let yourself be "normal", and be silent and blend in and leave it behind. 

And then, one of us died. It felt out of the blue and unexpected, but really.... really, it was just a matter of time. We'd been saying it over and over - heart disease kills 1 in 3 women. How could we really be surprised? 

The night that Rekisha died, I had to work late.  It was in the car on the way home that I learned of her passing. I tried so hard to stop the tears when I came in the door - but both boys knew something was wrong. Cameron, channeling me in his own little way, said "Shh, mama. It'll be okay. It hurts but it's not broken! Want me to kiss it?"

In my absence, my boys spent the evening building forts out of couch cushions. I concocted a steaming drink of almond milk, cocoa powder and peppermint schnapps and laid in a heap on the cushions. I watched her over and over again, hoping to get some perspective on the situation. Hoping that I could be fine thinking "It was her time" or "Her work was done." But it's not fine. Fuck fine. She was a mom and a wife and a daughter and a friend and a sister and so many things to so many other people. I've been through so many iterations of "what if" now that they all just blur together - what if she'd had better doctors? what if her heart disease had been discovered earlier? what if she'd been in a different city? Would the ending really be different?

So I can't get perspective. And it's not fine. And who knows what the right words are to honor her memory - I guess all you do from here is keep breathing and keep moving forward? And fight like hell so her death wasn't for nothing? 

I'll let you know how that goes.

 "I'm not afraid of death, but I resent it. I think its unfair and irritating. Every time I see something beautiful, I not only want to return to it, but it makes me want to see other beautiful things. I know I'm not going to get to all the places I want to go." -Viggo Mortenson

In honoring Rekisha and the 43 million women (and almost as many men) lost to cardiovascular disease every year, I ask you to please wear red on Friday, February 7th. Send me your photos (karenguccione@yahoo.com), post them on Facebook and tag me, or send them in a message. 

Wear your red loud and proud - show your support! 

Love and thanks ~Karen 

I'm not afraid of death, but I resent it. I think it's unfair and irritating. Every time I see something beautiful, I not only want to return to it, but it makes me want to see other beautiful things. I know I'm not going to get to all the places I want to go.

Viggo Mortensen

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/v/viggomorte553194.html#lRvaH1LM2PB0ybBs.99

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.
Oscar Wilde 

Reason, Stand, Quite

There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.
John F. Kennedy 

Life, War, Men

In liberal logic, if life is unfair then the answer is to turn more tax money over to politicians, to spend in ways that will increase their chances of getting reelected.
Thomas Sowell 

Life, Money, Getting

Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that creates huge inequalities.
Pope Francis I 

Human, Rights, Terrorism

I know the world isn't fair, but why isn't it ever unfair in my favor?
Bill Watterson 

Why, Fair, Favor

Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on whose stage of death and pain only remain standing the negotiating table that could and should have prevented it.
Pope John Paul II 

War, Death, Pain

Girls have an unfair advantage over men: if they can't get what they want by being smart, they can get it by being dumb.
Yul Brynner 

Men, Smart, Girl

I think it's unfair, but they have the right as fallible, screwed-up humans to be unfair; that's the human condition.
Albert Ellis 

Human, Condition, Humans

Soldiers are not policemen, and it's very unfair, even for those soldiers who have some police training, to burden them with police duties. It's not what they're trained for, or equipped for.
P. J. O'Rourke 

Training, Soldiers, Police

Racism, xenophobia and unfair discrimination have spawned slavery, when human beings have bought and sold and owned and branded fellow human beings as if they were so many beasts of burden.
Desmond Tutu 

Human, Racism, Slavery

No matter how corrupt and unjust a convict may be, he loves fairness more than anything else. If the people placed over him are unfair, from year to year he lapses into an embittered state characterized by an extreme lack of faith.
Anton Chekhov 

Faith, May, Matter

In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that He did not also limit his stupidity.
Konrad Adenauer 

God, Stupidity, Fact

It is unfair to blame man too fiercely for being pugnacious; he learned the habit from Nature.
Christopher Morley 

Nature, Learned, Blame

I have been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999.
Lance Armstrong 

Winning, Since, Advantage

Diversity on the bench is critical. As practitioners, you need judges who 'get it!' We need judges who understand what discrimination feels like. We need judges who understand what inequality feels like. We need judges who understand the subtleties of unfair treatment and who are willing to call it out when they see it!
Debbie Wasserman Schultz 

Understand, Call, Diversity

You really can't stereotype people or put them in boxes, it's unfair.
Kesha 

Stereotype, Boxes

The world's a mean place. It's unfair, then it's fair. It's hateful, then it's loving. It's a very peculiar place on philosophical and metaphysical and religious levels.
Tim Allen 

Mean, Place, Fair

Jobs that cannot be delivered must never be promised. It's unfair to raise people's hopes that way.
Bill O'Reilly 

Cannot, Jobs, Hopes

It's incredibly unfair. You don't see a lot of 60-year-old women with 20-year-old men onscreen.
George Clooney 

Women, Men, Incredibly

I'm not afraid of death, but I resent it. I think it's unfair and irritating. Every time I see something beautiful, I not only want to return to it, but it makes me want to see other beautiful things. I know I'm not going to get to all the places I want to go.
Viggo Mortensen

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/unfair.html#Yl4MHc2Be0oCHUaG.99