Support Tracie's Journey to Health and Recovery

Dear friends and fans of Tracie—

As many of you may know, our vibrant, indomitable, huge-hearted friend hit a rough patch last fall, when she was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. She took the difficult news like the trooper she is and soldiered on—until November, when she wound up in the ICU with a perforated colon. While in the ICU, she began having heart arrhythmias, including episodes of tachycardia, when her heart rate soared to 220 beats per minute—more than double the high end of normal. Terrifying.

It all seemed surreal. Tracie is this shining light of a human. Nothing fazes her. She spent years as a fashion stylist, and for the past 20 has worked as a "kid wrangler"—jumping around and singing and making funny faces and holding up bright toys to get babies and kids to smile for advertising photos. Sound exhausting? For most of us it would be. Not Tracie. I'm so lucky, she says all the time. I love my job. Which makes her health problems that much more upsetting. As a single mom, she just wants to do her job. She just wants to get back to work. And it might be a while before she can.

In January this year, she underwent surgery to remove a 12-inch section of her colon, including the bit that was perforated. The surgery was successful, but in the weeks leading up to it, she began experiencing hip pain, which, over the ensuing months, worsened to the point where it kept her awake at night and made every step excruciating. Imaging revealed another whammy: The steroids she'd been taking for Crohn's disease had caused avascular necrosis in her right hip. Translation: The bone had died. She'd need a hip replacement. (She continued working, by the way, as much as she possibly could—which would surprise no one who knows her. The woman is unstoppable.)

In March her doctors treated her arrhythmias by creating six tiny scars in disparate parts of her heart to block the abnormal electrical signals each was sending. She was thrilled to have that behind her. Now that her big, beautiful heart was restored to normal, she had (she thought) just had one more surgery before her life could get back to normal: Hip replacement at the end of May.

Unfortunately, life can be infuriatingly unfair. At the end of April, Tracie woke up one morning and realized she couldn't hear anything with her right ear. When she tried to get out of bed, she had such intense vertigo it made her nauseated, and she couldn't stand or walk without help. Because she couldn't take steroids, the first-line treatment, due to the hip necrosis, she's been getting steroid shots in her eardrum and spending hours in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber—the theory being that breathing pure oxygen can increase the amount of oxygen in the blood and tissues and promote healing. With luck, it may bring back at least some of her hearing.

When I met Tracie thirty-some years ago, she was accessorizing outfits for a fashion show, and I was writing the copy for the announcer to read when each model walked down the runway. We spent two long days and nights, toiling and talking, and by the end I realized I had not only met an extraordinary person but had made a life-long friend.

Several times over these difficult months, I've offered to do a Go Fund Me for Tracie. But she always says, No, I'll figure it out. After the sudden hearing loss, she finally gave in. She had to. Between the hyperbaric treatments and the hip surgery and recovery, she's going to be unable to work, or work only sporadically, for some time. Plus: medical bills.

I know many of you love Tracie as much as I do—and I know you're eager to help. We can't assist with the surgeries or wave a magic wand and restore her hearing. But we can give her some peace of mind and ease her worry by offering financial support. Let's let her know she's not in this alone.

Thank you so much for being in her life, and in her corner. I know she'd be grateful for any amount.