The Light through the Darkness

Kelsey Nicole, 5/28/86 - 6/20/09

I'm done being sad about the Penguins.  The rest of you can carry on with it if you want to.  I want nothing more to do with the incessant whining of the fan base about everything from who got fired to how it got announced that he got fired (seriously, that debate happened:  who the hell cares?!).  I'm choosing to move on. Summer is here - we kind of hope anyway - and there's a lot to do.  Summer movies, yard work, art festivals, more yard work, walks along the rivers, gardening, the job, running errands and pulling weeds.  You get the picture.  Life is hectic.  Life does not allow for a whole lot of time to reflect, and I've decided I'm spending too much of it concentrating on championships that aren't going to happen and mean-spirited neighbors who don't like dogs.

What I'd rather concentrate and reflect on is the amazing outpouring of support my daughter and I received recently when we signed ourselves up for what will be only the second NEDA Walk in Pittsburgh, the day after the fifth anniversary of losing my oldest daughter after her nine year battle with her eating disorder.  When we saw the date, we both got chills.  There has to be more than coincidence going on there, even to a cynical person such as myself.  So, I wasted no time in signing myself up, which automatically sets up a donation page.  I posted about it online and within minutes, a long time and dear friend had made a donation.  Within just a couple of hours, more people had joined her and my goal was met.  Since then donations have kept coming in, some from people I know are stretching their wallets to find the money.  Friends of mine, sure, but friends of my daughter from before the disease took hold who have remembered her for who she was, not the disease, which twisted her psyche and made her hard to love much of the time.  Friends of my younger daughter have donated, who is recovered from her own eating disorder, even though they are mostly young people trying to get established in life, so finding some extra dollars for a donation like that can be a challenge.  Others have picked up the link and shared it.  In summary, I am overwhelmed at the love and support we received.  It's more than the money, and I think a lot of the people who donated know that.  Now we have a purpose.  Now we have a reason to power through what will be a horribly tough anniversary.  And we'll remember my lost daughter in a positive way on that day.

Why is this walk important?  Because, simply put, this disease is a killer.  A destroyer maybe not of worlds, but of bright and promising futures.  It's hard to get a number on how many people (men suffer from ED too) just in the United States suffer from the disease, and the estimates vary wildly.  The reason for that is it's under-reported.  Particularly in men.  So I can't tell you if it's truly 8 million or 10 or even more than that.  But one thing every site and expert will agree on, it carries the highest mortality rate or any mental illness.  The NEDA website states, "For females between fifteen to twenty-four years who suffer from anorexia nervosa, the mortality rate associated with the illness is twelve times higher than the death rate of all other causes…”  That's an under-reported statistic too, sadly, since many people like my daughter will have causes other than ED as the primary cause of death, but, as I once wrote, something else may have pushed her over the cliff, but we all know what it was the drove her to it.

And, in Pittsburgh, ED lives in the shadows.  It's there.  I've known people from here who have battled it.  But they've gone elsewhere to do it.  There is a budding support system, but for a major metropolitan area, it's woefully lacking.  I noticed, as I think I told you, that when we went to Harrisburg to advocate for legislation to educate parents about the disease, we were the only two representatives from the western half of the state.  I have a theory about the tough steel town demeanor of the people here not allowing them to admit to the fact that a disease like ED, often misunderstood as to its origins, exists here.  But it does.  In both sexes.  So this is an important walk because it brings some attention to a true serial killer.  And because I love this town, I want to fight for it to be better.  And because I love my daughter, I want to honor her by fighting in her name.

I love all of you so much who have understood that donated to help make that happen.

If anyone else wants to, this is my donation page.

If you're in the area and want to join the walk, find out more on the Pittsburgh NEDA Walk Facebook page or visit the NEDA website.