Help (the Remarkable) Jessica Heal!

This is Jessica. Jessica has been like a sister to me for the last 30 years, giving me guidance and advice at times when I needed it most. She is kind, community-minded, and always looking out for others. That’s not easy for your average New Yorker, let alone this particular New Yorker.

 

 

You see, Jess has never had it easy. Detailing a full list of health problems feels a little hackneyed, but since she was 16 I’ve seen this woman overcome the kind of medical challenges that would make a Y.A. reader put down the book because it wouldn’t seem plausible, including a lifelong struggle with epilepsy and a successful 11-year fight against cancer. It’s easy to call someone like that an inspiration, a survivor, or a hero, and she is all of those things. She is also left with remarkable struggles that come with those battles, and all too often that’s the part we don’t see: the ravages of treatment, the sacrifices that come with victories, and the dangers lurking for a physically-weakened human.

 

Jess’s passion in life is food. She has run restaurants, designed menus, created mail-order condiments, and managed large university kitchens. Yet working in the culinary field became increasingly difficult when her health restrictions began to require special accommodations. Her consulting business kept her going once she left the world of restaurants and commercial kitchens, but that was unfortunately timed to a decline in her health. She was diagnosed with ten medical conditions within a five-year period, many which were a direct result of her cancer treatments. That includes celiac disease, IBS, chronic fatigue syndrome, biliary disease, Secondary Sjogren ’s syndrome and more. Her energy levels and the time commitment to her new treatments made running her business difficult, and that was before COVID-19.

 

 

When the pandemic hit, her business came to a standstill. She began her vaccination regiment, but she suffered anaphylaxis, making her ineligible to continue any available vaccines. In November of 2020 she underwent ambulatory surgery for Sphincter of Oddi Dysfunction and was admitted to the hospital for four days with acute pancreatitis. The following 12 months would include six additional surgeries, 5 for biliary dysfunction and one to repair her hip. Her next and most intensive open surgery will be to resect and reconstruct her common bile duct. It is scheduled for January 3rd and includes a hospitalization and 6-8 weeks of recovery. 

 

The decision to close her company is something Jessica is wrestling with each day. Her deteriorating health and continued doctor visits, medical testing and surgeries have become a full-time job. It is hard to imagine how difficult that choice is when her culinary career was often the one aspect of her life that seemed to be getting better every year, but that is the situation she now finds herself in.

 

Her amazing partner Denise works full time to support both of them, but that is never an easy path when living in New York City, the place that has been their home together for several years. What we are hoping to accomplish with this Go Fund Me campaign is ease her financial stress so that she can focus on healing.

 

 

For years, Jessica has looked past her own problems to support others, opening her heart to her friends, her family and countless strangers through big and small acts of kindness. She is the kind of person that brings a coffee to a cold street person, high-fives a celebrity on the walk back to her apartment, and then calls her dad to hear a good joke. I can’t imagine anyone who deserves a return act of kindness like she does. Please consider any donation, it can go so far to help one of my favorite people in the world.