New York lawyer David Worby visited just before her death in 2006. When he met her friends he asked one thing: Knowing what she knows now, do you think she would do it again?

“It was like a chorus,” said long­time friend Scotty Nead. “Every­one said ‘yes.’ That’s just the type of person she was.”

Mahoney had been in New York for less than a week on Sept. 11, 2001. The former Belvedere, S.C., EMT had been sent to an Episcopal convent where she was to decide what her ministry would be as a nun.

When news of the first plane crash reached Mahoney, she donned her former EMT uniform and headed toward the nearest hospital to help.

“She told me that the ambulance driver (at the hospital) said that people were dying down there and some of them were first-responders,” Nead recalled 10 years later. “She said ‘That doesn’t matter. I need to go help.’ ”

The ambulance welcomed her onboard and trucked her down to the site.

Months later, Mahoney recounted watching people burn or jump to their deaths with Nead, a then-vicar at St. Augustine Episcopal Church of Aiken.

“She would spend a few moments the best she could because there were so many people to deal with,” he said. “Most of them were talking about their families. It was really heart wrenching for her knowing that these people’s dying breath was to ask her to talk to their families.”

After the first day, she returned to “The Pit” in her nun’s habit. She returned every day for the next five months, blessing human remains and offering pastoral support.

After leaving The Pit in Feb­ruary, Mahoney opted to not continue becoming a nun.

“I think 9/11 took everything out of her. She was just not able to continue,” Nead said.

Mahoney never completely got back on her feet after leaving from New York.

Within a year, she started experiencing trouble breathing. Also during that time, she was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer in Charleston, S.C.

The accident left her disabled. Attempts at obtaining disability were unsuccessful. In 2004, five government officials were contacted about the potential harm she had suffered during 9/11 cleanup, but nothing was ever done.

Eventually she was homeless and sleeping in her car.

“I described her as a saint (at her funeral),” said Nead, who is now retired.

When Worby, a lawyer handling the case for hundreds of first responders like her, met her in Aiken in 2006, she was suffering from asthma, reactive airways dysfunction syndrome, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, gastroesophageal reflux disease and post traumatic stress disorder.

“Her health was gone and it made her somewhat depressed,” Nead recalled. “At the same time, she had the spirit to fight for all the other people who were suffering like she was. She insisted on having an autopsy when she died to show that the effects of 9/11 were still killing people.”

On Nov. 1, 2006, the 54-year-old died of lung failure.

On Jan. 2, 2011, President Obama signed the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act to provide $4.2 billion in compensation to rescue and recovery workers.

“She (Mahoney) personally let me know that there are some rare human beings who will give their lives when called upon at a minute’s notice without regard to their own wellbeing,” Nead said.

Instead of Interstitial Cystitis becoming a curse for me it has become a life-changing gift.  I was devastated and angry when first diagnosed in 1983.  Then I was relieved to have a name for what plagued my every waking minute and interrupted my sleep.   In-between potty breaks I decided to fight rather than give up.  I went back to school and got my Master’s degree in Social Work.  I opened a holistic private practice and began to counsel among others, “IC” patients offering them hope and encouragement.  Creative ways to deal with pain emerged.

I began to meditate and ended up doing my doctoral dissertation on the positive effects of meditation for those in recovery from alcohol and drugs.  Instead of focusing on what I could not eat or do I looked for methods to enhance my palate and expand my physical limitations.  Each time a new ICA Update arrived I immediately sat down and read it entirely looking for nuggets of information to add to my repertoire of coping tools.  I was not disappointed. 

Years ago I started support groups as an ICA volunteer in South Carolina and had the privilege to travel to other states to offer assistance to their coordinators.  Instead of wallowing in “ain’t it awful,” I looked for how my situation could be used to my advantage.  Along the path other conditions surfaced, which I thought originally were related to IC and now research is showing probable connections.  These included IBS, allergies, Fibromyalgia, Vulvodynia, Vestibulitis, and food intolerances.  With each added diagnosis I educated my health practitioners about the development and kept them informed.  The result was they now look to me for updated information.  They refer patients to me for support. 

My story does not end there.  Last year I went through a divorce, was diagnosed with colon cancer, and a blocked right carotid artery.  Two surgeries within seven days and a two-week hospitalization took its toll on my already compromised body.  Instead of whining about my situation I used the tools IC had taught me.  I wrote articles, research papers, and journaled as the release for my anxiety and fear.  I called on my support network of other IC patients to check on me and pray for me.  They rallied around me as I had them in their “dark night of the soul.” 

Here I am one year later and have added two more diagnoses to my growing list.  They are Chronic Lyme’s disease and Heavy Metal Toxicity.  The literature references a possible connection to my IC and cancer.  Once again my writing afforded me the opportunity to publish an article in an on-line journal for social workers.

Now disabled, I have the time to rest, to write, to read all the research, and to educate patients and health practitioners alike.  I am more centered, aware of my body, alert to changes in it, open to new techniques, and hopeful that research will bring us the knowledge of what can be done to lessen our pain and treat this all-encompassing condition.  May you breathe deeply and rest in the assurance that you are not alone. 

Melanie Barton

To be prepared have on hand:

• a living will
• health care power of attorney
• HIPAA compliant person who knows where things are
• written office practice instructions (copy also kept safely outside office)
• lists of passwords, websites, insurance company contact information, clients names and phone numbers, and outstanding billing
• directions on how to process claims and do billing
• back-up of your processed insurance claims and programs
• written instructions of what to say to your clients and how to change voice mail message
• sample release form ready for clients to sign so treatment summary can be sent

When you enter the hospital: Clients may try to call, to visit, to send flowers, etc. They feel anxious and abandoned having their therapy disrupted abruptly.

• have a non-published status at the hospital.
• have a reassuring message on your phone that says please respect your need to heal and instructions on how and where to get their records sent

What to do while you heal after the crisis:

• consult with the therapist your client chose.
• do all those things we said we would do when we got time
• exercise
• get a makeover
• go for psychotherapy
• make a gratitude list
• meditate
• read
• redesign how you will do your practice when you start over
• watch comedy
• write an article

You can look at this as an ending or a new beginning. Attitude will make all the difference. If we practice what we have taught our clients, what a wealth of experience we can share when we are back in that therapist’s chair.

Without the proper role models she raised three successful daughters who learned from her how to not give up, how to do something that is seen perhaps as selfish like hiding candy in her top dresser drawer as a gift to herself when times were tough, and how to bounce back from adversity. Breast cancer was first diagnosed in 1980 when she had just separated from my stepfather. She thought she had successfully beat it until twenty-five years later she discovered it had been lurking under the surface wreaking havoc on her body. Not even a week after celebrating her 80th birthday she was diagnosed with metastasized breast cancer. She was told she would live maybe two weeks to a month. Just when we were told the end was near she decided she was not ready to die. She woke up and wanted to go on a picnic. She moved into an assisted living facility taking each day as a new lease on life. She went shopping, went out to eat, and continued to enjoy what comforts she could. Mom died 5 and ½ months after her diagnosis. We had a couple from the dance studio where she took lessons do a breathtaking waltz at her memorial service. Now that I have been diagnosed with colon cancer, like her and like her mother before her, I remember how she taught me to look at what I can learn from my situation, to reach out to others who are worse off than I am, and to enjoy life no matter what. I hope to one day leave the same legacy for my children that life is a precious gift to be fully lived each day, one day at a time. Thanks mom and Happy Mother’s Day.

Different factors can contribute to the development of anxiety including: fear of what may happen in the future, side effects of medication or pain, past episodes of anxiety related to stressful events, lack of accurate knowledge of the risks of the disease, or untrained healthcare providers failing to notice or accurately detect or treat anxiety. DSM-IV-TR (2004) diagnosis of a medical related anxiety does not address the severity of the problem, the initiating cause of problem, the categories of the disorder, or co-morbidity factors. Education and communication is needed between patients and healthcare providers to adequately provide resources to lessen the development of the disorder and to properly treat it once it develops.

We had to be counted. I didn’t expect to deliver here in this stable. I’m not complaining. I’m grateful for a place to lay our down.

These gifts are overwhelming. How did they know to come? How did they find us? I wish I could tell my parents about the baby, but that will have to wait. It is hard to find a quiet place to nurse my son. Did you ever try making diapers out of rags? The Innkeeper brought us some food. The animals keep us warm. It will be a few weeks before I can travel or cook until I am no longer considered unclean.

In a few days Jesus will be 8 days old and is supposed to be circumcised so it is good our rabbi had to come to be counted too so he can do it. I don’t think I can watch. I know it is tradition, but I cannot stand to watch my baby go through pain.

It is good that my clothes still fit me pregnant or not because out here there would not be anyway for me to make any new ones and we do not have the money to have someone make me any.

When the angel told me I was pregnant months ago I thought I imagined it. I was never with a man so when I started getting nauseated and my back hurt I did not know what to think.

You should have been there when I told my parents. I thought my mom was going to faint. My dad looking all serious asked if Joseph knew. I said yes and he didn’t believe me at first. Then he said he needed time to think. In my culture an unmarried pregnant woman could be stoned to death. That is not what I wanted at age 14. I was so scared, but when my dad smiled and said “My daughter God has deemed you very special and this is a miracle. We will get through this together.

Joseph’s parents were not so easily convinced, but they believed their son when he told them an angel came to him and told him I was pregnant and he was to marry me.

Now here we are married, and parents in an unfamiliar place with an uncertain future.

Would you like all this attention? Would you believe your son was specially sent to save the world? Would you tell people or just keep in all inside? For me I am pondering all these things in my heart.

Meditation: Inhale; Go to Bethlehem, smells, and sounds, touch. Envision the nativity scene. Imagine you are one of the people in this scene. What are you doing? What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What are you to learn from this experience? What are you to share with others about this experience?

Discussion questions: talk about the meditation, talk about what it would be like to be a parent of Jesus.

• One Sunday a month I am a volunteer consultant to an African American church in formation, which has a lively form of worship and a spirited message.
• One Sunday a month I take those without transportation to a recovery breakfast and then participate in the prayer and meditation meeting that follows.
• When in Alabama it is a privilege to help hand out socks, and toothpaste and assorted toiletries to those who have no resources in a church that serves the homeless and mentally ill
• On a daily basis I email back and forth with people who live alone and have no family around them. They check in with me so I will know they are alive and okay.
• I volunteer to take people to the food stamp office and to sign up for Medicaid.
• I talk to people’s attorneys to help them translate what is needed to acquire their social security disability.
• A Thanksgiving tradition for 35 years is to invite those who have no place to go to my home. We graze all day, play games, laugh, and if there is any food left over they take it home.

At one of the spiritual gatherings I attend I ran into someone I knew back in Charleston who also has chronic Lyme’s and Heavy Metal Toxicity. We began to support one another with daily phone calls. His Lyme’s progressed to where it affected his circulation. I became his patient advocate and Power of Attorney. Three months and three hospitals later, he finally went home to a new apartment, missing a leg, but positive in his outlook. I coordinated people donating furnishings for his apartment. As a result of my interaction with the rehabilitation facility on his behalf, I am doing an in-service training on how to communicate with the residents and may possibly volunteer to do a support group for the families whose loved ones reside there.

I have been blessed with good people all around me. Isn’t it exciting to serve our Creator in this world? Ask that you be shown what gifts you can share with others. I guarantee you will not be disappointed for none can out give the Spirit.

Your Servant,
Dr. Melanie Barton

Carolyn Cutrona as quoted in Blessed Connections by Judith a. Schwanz on page 81 “cites several studies in which at least 75 percent of married men say that their wives are their greatest source of emotional support.” This support may be healthy for the men, but too often the women do not get reciprocal emotional support from their husband.  Many men do not deal well with women being emotionally, financially, or physically dependent on them even though they may have unconsciously fostered it. They want it, encourage it, but then resent it. The husband may fear the wife will outgrow her need to depend on him.  He may then get angry when the wife tries to assert her independence believing it means the husband is no longer needed and that she will find someone else to replace him. 

I often see men starting affairs when their wives get cancer.  Men divert all that painful emotion into something to distract them that feels good.  It becomes a parent-child issue.  If the husband never bonded emotionally with his mother or felt abandoned by her he may angrily or passively develop a child-like dependency on his wife to meet that unmet need.  If the wife comes from a background where she is lacking in the ability to feel good about herself she may allow such a dependency to develop being more a mother figure than a wife.  When she gets sick and cannot perform her normal role, the spouse out of fear and unresolved abandonment issues will abandon her before she abandons him.   The wife is taught in our society and in religious circles that the way to meet our needs is to make certain the man has his met first. If the dependent wife becomes ill and chooses to put her own needs first, the man feels that mother abandonment all over again and so pulls away.  In our culture we do not normally allow males to express their emotions unless it is lust, anger, or some other negative feature.  To view this, just look at how our media portrays males in the commercials and sitcoms.  They are presented as incompetent, incapable of making good choices, and called “sissies” if they show any sign of pain, compassion, grief, or expression of an emotion that is not negative.

To combat this programming we need to instruct both our male and female children that it is healthy to discuss feelings without needing to violently display them.  We need to give children an opportunity to see illness not as a weakness, but a fact of life.  We need to teach boys and girls how to be self-sufficient learning to do things like cooking, cleaning, ironing, sewing on a button, and balancing a checkbook. As married people we need to talk about how we will handle situations when one of the couple gets ill.  Proactively, we need to get the healthcare power of attorney and wills in place to lessen the emotional trauma of having to make those decisions in the middle of a health crisis.  If the husband does not want the responsibility of making all those end of life decisions, work it out in advance.  Have another person who is willing.  That can be an adult child, a relative, or friend. Get premarital counseling that includes personality compatibility questionnaires and discussing roles of who does what.  Throughout marriage get wellness check-ups with a therapist to avert red flags before they become roadblocks.  If the husband and wife decide the marriage is contributing to the illness of the one partner, do not wait until that spouse is dying before either going for help or ending a marriage that should have ended a long time ago.  Often illness is an eye opener to the reality of a dysfunctional marriage and it propels the patient to take healthy action to save his or her own life.
Blessed Connections by Judith a. Schwanz. (2008). Herndon, Va: The Alban Institute

Q: Are you dealing with this issue in your personal life or practice? How are you helping clients deal with this issue? Yes, seven weeks after I separated from my spouse of 39 years I was diagnosed with colon cancer.  Prior to going on medical disability, I was helping clients deal with the issue in relation to my treating them while going through a divorce.  I let them know I have the tools to make a marriage work and the tools are valid, but you have to have people who are willing to use them.  Sometimes the tools let you know that ending something that is unhealthy for both parties is the most humane thing you can do.

Q: It is difficult for woman to deal with a serious illness such as cancer or lupus and build a new life after a separation or divorce. What advice to you have for a woman who are dealing with this crisis in their lives? Do you have a personal story to relate? This is what is helping me heal from the cancer and the divorce.  Surround yourself with positive things.  Music, reading material, good healthy food, clothing that brings comfort to your body are all good reinforcements.  Only invest your time and energy in people who have your best interest at heart.  Create a carepages.com web page to write about your illness and add updates so people can be informed about your progress.  Use whatever spiritual tools work for you: church, prayer, meditation, a support group, or a 12-step community involvement.  Give something back to help someone else so you are not focused on just your self.  Give away things you do not need to help someone who could use those items.  Go to therapy to redesign what you want to do with the rest of your life no matter how long or short that may be.  Look at this situation as a fresh start and that there are now multiple options to choose from for your future.

Q: Is this issue a matter of life and death? In other words, is there evidence that seriously ill patients do better physically when they have a loving home environment? According to Steven Muse in a Yale University School of Medicine study:

            One hundred and nineteen men and 40 women undergoing coronary angiography, coronary atherosclerosis significantly decreased for persons who felt loved and supported when compared to those who did not, even after other risk factors had been controlled, including age, sex, income, high blood pressure, serum cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, genetics, and hostility.

            Most interestingly of all, researchers discovered that sharing feelings by way of writing in a journal even when no other person was actually present had important physical benefits. (p.27)
This book is Beside Still Waters by J. Steven Muse. (2000) Macon, Ga: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc.