Why I Fight

I refuse to die from this. In December, ambiguous results on a breast sonogram led me to speak to a surgeon, who recommended more in-depth tests. These confirmed that there was cancer in my left breast. Stage One, I was told, which required only the removal of a lump: “the best kind you can have.” Except that it turned out not to be. Not the worst, either, but not the best. Stage Two, I am now told.

So, today, I will have full mastectomies on both breasts, followed by interim reconstructive surgery. In some ways, this comes as a relief, because from the first moment, I felt like mastectomies were the safest, most prudent course. The experts said this would be overkill for Stage One. But they have come to agree with what I instinctively knew was best from the beginning.

The next steps will be months of chemo therapy, followed by weeks of radiation therapy, followed by years of hormone therapy. My hope and my plan is that someday, many years from now, I will die of something else.

My family and friends keep telling me that I am inspiring them with my courage. I don’t know what they’re talking about. I certainly don’t feel courageous. Mostly, I feel angry and frightened. Maybe they are referring to the fact that I haven’t suffered a nervous collapse, or lost the ability to function. Some part of me would love to do both of those things, but I feel like losing my grip is a luxury that I cannot afford.

The reason I can’t allow myself such indulgences is that I want other, more important things. In April, I’m going to accompany my younger daughter on college tours. And I’m determined to see her graduate not only high school this spring, but college four years from now. I also harbor the hope, universal among women my age, that both of my daughters will eventually become mothers themselves, and that I will someday hold those babies in my arms.

In the meantime, I have a job that I need and a career that matters to me. The company I work for has been very, very supportive; I am so glad that I accepted a position there several years ago. And I’m also in contention (along with multiple other candidates) for a promotion, which adds to the stress of this diagnosis.

Justine Cuccia leads a Democracy for Battery Park City rally, supporting resident representation on the board of the Battery Park City Authority.

But there are so many other things I want to be around for. Years ago, I helped lead the fight to prevent the iconic staircase in the Winter Garden from being demolished. Then I co-founded Democracy for Battery Park City, which helped push for resident representation on the board of the Battery Park City Authority. Those fights were important, and the victories satisfying. But the dangers facing my community today are even more serious.

Affordability is under siege in Battery Park City, and throughout Lower Manhattan. With stretches of Midtown and the new Hudson Yards being described as ghettoes for billionaires, we need to stop the same from happening here. Particularly in Battery Park City, we must demand protection for rental tenants (especially in Gateway Plaza, but in other buildings, too), and for condominium owners, by renegotiating the absurd terms of a ground lease that will eventually make all of us homeless.

There is no sign that desperately needed resiliency measures for Downtown will be in place before the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, and every reason to worry that their design and implementation cry out for greater participation by the community. But the biggest resiliency plan of all may call for the most tenacious fight. The de Blasio administration plans to use landfill to create another Battery Park City along the East River, to serve as a flood barrier. All of us need to unite and make sure that the lessons learned the first time around are applied there. Specifically, we have to push for a law that will guarantee residents of our neighborhoods a majority of board seats at the new agency that City Hall will set up to build and run the development.

	The author is the co-chair of the Battery Park City Committee of Community Board 1.

Finally, I know in my heart that my breast cancer is directly connected to the toxic debris that I inhaled while fleeing with my family through the dust cloud on the morning of September 11, 2001. This makes me part of the next wave of survivors who are only now becoming sick with life-threatening illnesses because of what we endured that day. And we are facing this ordeal at the exact moment when Congress has allowed funding for the Victims Compensation Fund to lapse. Not just for me, but for everybody like me (and I fear there will be hundreds, perhaps thousands), we need to push hard for all the funding that is necessary, with no sunset date. We need to amend and expand the Zadroga Act to erase the legal distinction between first responders and residents, workers, students and other victims. Like so many others, I chose to return to this community after September 11, and to help rebuild. Everybody who did that has displayed courage and a spirit of service rooted in the same instincts that sent heroes in uniform racing into the Twin Towers that beautiful September morning, and that compelled so many others to spend the days, weeks and months that followed working at the site. Every human life devastated by this tragedy is of equal worth.

So I am calling upon Jerry Nadler to renew his leadership on this issue in Congress. I call upon Jon Stewart to keep raising public awareness. And I call upon both of them to ensure that their fight to fully and indefinitely fund the Zadroga Act includes  residents, students, workers and visitors, as well as first responders. They will be hearing from me as soon as I’m back on my feet, after today’s surgery.

On September 11, 2001, my then eight-year-old daughter held my hand as we ran through the avalanche of debris that has now given me cancer. She cried and begged me to “make it stop.” I wasn’t able to do that. Since that day however, I have made it my mission to do better. So I’m going to make this cancer stop. I am going to fight with everything I have to protect the community that I call home. Each of these struggles will take years, maybe a decade or more. But I plan to be around for all of them. So for all of these reasons — for my community, for my family, and for myself — I’m going to keep fighting. And I’m going to win.