Thread by @VABVOX

More hospital for me, today.
The rest of you, remember to breathe and keep the toxic at bay.
And take in some beauty.

The tulips and daffodils are in bloom!

Thanks so much to all the lovely, kind people wishing me well. Your support is so vital.

It was a harrowing day. #Cancer is a slog, but I am managing (except for some trolls who have sad lives).

I remain grateful for all of you, for great docs, for my fab fam.

Thank you. 💜🌿

Filing columns from hospital beds is exhausting.
Once, when I was at @PhillyDailyNews, before email was a thing, I wrote my copy long-hand from the ICU. That story, about the ICU, was later nom'd for Pulitzer, but all I remember was thinking those might be my last written words.

There's a space we inhabit when we are living with extremes of illness, which millions are, right now. It's a hard space to be in. Everyone is at imminent risk of death all the time from happenstance,but when you are already ill,happenstance feels that much more near--and likely.

I saw someone respond to a Twitter friend who takes expensive meds to stay alive and they asked why he would do that. I've seen others troll the mother of a severely disabled child, asking why she didn't abort.

Our lives have meaning. How dare anyone question that.

I am fortunate that I can write from bed. I can interview people on the phone. I can do email interviews with people in other countries who don't have access to a phone. At no point have I thought my life is over now that I am paralyzed.

I'm angry, but I'm not dead.

A #disabled woman I know, who like me "doesn't look disabled," has been getting a lot of pushback because she writes #disability every day. "Don't you have anything else to say?"

Did I miss where we had TOO MANY stories of disabled lives when 1 in 5 Americans has a disability?

I'm just spitballing here, but the life I am forced to live as a person with #cancer who is now paralyzed as well is tough. And it's made tougher by the politics of what today's polls say are 43% of Americans.

A doctor told me today that I was lucky I still had insurance under this regime.
I said without the #ACA I wouldn't.
He agreed.

That conversation was anything but comforting.
Every time I see a white person I don't know, I wonder if they voted to put my life at risk.

I'm a Christian. We are supposed to model Christ and be forgiving.
But I am flawed and I harbor quite a bit of rage at those of you who made the lives of millions of #disabled people and people with #cancer so much more hellish.I wish I could buttonhole all of you and demand why.

I didn't want to turn this into a rage-fest. But I'm in considerable pain & this is a tough fight, day in/day out. It's not just the impact it's had on me,but the impact it's had on my wife, my family, my closest friends. The accommodations my editors have made for me--all of it.

So I want people to think long and hard about the votes in upcoming primaries. Think about the damage you might have done in Nov 2016, the harm that's been done to so many people at your hands.

Vulnerable America needs a Democratic Congress.
This is your chance to fix things.

All the kids who walked out of schools all over America today get it.
All the elected officials like my mayor, fighting to make our #SanctuaryCities safe for undocumented workers get it.
All the people at risk from Trump get it.

Commit youself to getting it.
#GOTV for Democrats.

I wrote about what the Trump administration is doing to us here:

It Sure Looks Like the GOP Is Trying to Kill Us
damemagazine.com/2018/03/13/it-…