Lessons Learned

I am undergoing treatment for multiple myeloma. For those of you who knew me then, you might remember I had a 10-hour neurosurgery in 2008 that first brought awareness of an underlying plasma cell disorder. Doctors and I have been watching it all these years. Blood tests back in December suggested a spike. Then, in January, I yanked hard on something and thought I had pulled a chest muscle. Ten days later, I had a two-hour scheduled MRI. The next day, the first thing the doctor said when I went into the office was to ask how my ribs and shoulder were. “How did you know about that?” I asked. “Tracy,” he said, “Your rib is fractured. The cancer is in your bones there. It is time to start treatment.”

So far, it is very tolerable. I am continuing to teach—an information policy applied research course at Cornell—and consult on cybersecurity curriculum with Mitrano and Associates. The treatment is for four months, at which time, I pray, I will be in remission. Cross the bridge of a stem cell transplant then. I am resolved, which is a blessing for me to have a sense of direction and purpose.

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with the nurse who administrators my infusions twice a week. Over the weekend, when I am off steroids and “crashing”—mostly being very fatigued—I am noticing my dreams. Was in Italy visiting some of my old haunts. Trying to persuade Kathy Hochul’s office to take cyber into account when doling out the abundant monies for broadband in New York State. And I think my mom made a cameo appearance; it was good to see her! “People tell me about their dreams,” the nurse said, which of course piqued my curiosity. When I prompted him to tell me more, the report came more along the lines of conscious thoughts about what they had, or had not, done differently with their lives. “Make up with a friend? Amends with a family member? Not spoken harshly to a child?” No, it turns out it is mostly about not having taken chances or risks in life. In the abstract, there always seemed to be time. Then, boom, a diagnosis! And a timeline, often not enough of one to accommodate those choices.

Did something unknowing prompt me to leave academic information technology in 2017 to run for Congress? Without a definite diagnosis or any timeline, I took the leap against financial, career and personal interest. I have no regrets about 2018, even though I was pretty sure I would not be successful. If I could have predicted the Trump effect, which in NY-23 turned many registered Democrats into effective Republican voters, or COVID-19, I would not have run twice (notwithstanding my promise, and strategy in 2018). On March 13, 2020, returning home from a few weeks on the road out in the western part of the district, I called in the troops due to the pandemic. I knew it was over then. If I could not get out and meet people face-to-face, to demonstrate I was not the injection-site, defund-the-police candidate that my opponent made me out to be, there was no way I was going to make it. But there it is. I am not a bucket-list kind of person—good thing, I guess, because that move was more of one huge dump truck.

What did I learn, you might ask? Lots. First, politics was, in my experience, dirtier than I imagined it to be. For years I took note of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s adage about academics: they fight so much because there is so little to lose. In our paralytic Congress, I can attest it is even more true in politics, both at the primary and general election level. Second, the campaign playbook used against me was hardly unique. Create a straw man; throw a million dollars of corporate campaign money into lies, histrionics and a fear-mongering attack. Works if you have the demographics, money and corresponding media outlets that demonize politics. Third, social media absolutely played a deleterious role. Name the Russian trick: create fake profiles, use proxies to evade campaign finance, generate gratuitous discord even where none exists—those features were constant and predominated on Facebook. Fourth, given this environment, policy hardly matters in a general election. The last day I recall talking policy was the day of the primary in 2018, June 23. The remainder of the time was the campaign playbook; there was no meaningful discussion of issues or policy in it. And that point leads to the fifth, and ultimately most unfortunate, aspect: Republicans and Democrats, framed by this environment, are almost completely talking around each other at this point. Very, very few people want to take political issues seriously and work through the differences.

On a personal level, I learned something about my limits. I grew up with loving, dedicated and hardworking parents, but not with refinement and with lots of scrap. I thought that background would put me in good stead with a district that mirrors much of that tough Scotch-Irish, Italian immigrant, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps sensibility. Turns out I have cultivated something of a romantic view of that past. When I felt the pressure of so many people’s hopes and support—including money—I reverted quickly to fight, and some behaviors I long ago left behind to be a good academic. I was not always graceful under pressure in private (and there are other issues, too, ranging from competence of staff to the politics that divided Democrats), although I did retain, I think, a good enough composure in public. Here was the lesson: all these years I thought I was the scrappy Irish-Italian girl from Rochester swathed in academic robes (and I have many!). Turns out those robes—and the dreams, aspirations and ideals of academia that they wrap up—are as real to me now as the passions of a little girl from the other side of the tracks.

Here, then, is my thought to share: if you are tempted by a road not taken, take a calculated risk! One honestly does not always know how much time and health one may have left to do it. You are bound to learn many things, such as business, budgets, politics, technologies, a craft, a trade, an expression of higher beauty or art. The most important lesson, however, is the one that you learn about yourself. I am not afraid to die (sad to miss my family, friends, colleagues and students, but not afraid), which at this point might be too easy for me say, because that is not imminent with my current diagnosis. But in the reflection of an incurable cancer, I am discovering how important it is for me to live with and in grace.