A Leap of Faith

I knew it was time to leave my award winning career as a VA social worker after receiving the diagnosis of Post-Polio Syndrome in December of 2006. I was terrified to set "the date" for when I would take a leap of faith and move into a new chapter of my life. Shortly after the diagnosis of what doctors said would be a progressive neuromuscular disease and that I should prepare to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair, I discovered the gift of poetry in my soul. My pen became my divining rod for healing and I knew there would be life after the VA but how could I possibly leave behind an almost six figure salary with great benefits just 3 years shy of when I was eligible for retirement? While I had wondrous imaginings about becoming a New York Times Bestselling author and being on Oprah with my journey of transformation, I was well aware that we had a mortgage and bills to pay.

I originally set the date for October of 2007 but in April, I went for a routine mammogram.

From 'Coming Home: A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility':
In April I went for a routine mammogram. I spoke to the Universe, “I know that I cannot have an abnormal mammogram right now because I have enough on my plate.” I was all too aware of my risk for breast cancer given that my mother, her mother and my father’s sister all had breast cancer. My father’s sister died from breast cancer. “This is not going to happen to me,” I vowed.

The red light was blinking on my office phone indicating I had a voicemail message.

“Hello this message is for Mary McManus. It’s the Breast Center at Mass. General Hospital. Please call us at your earliest convenience.”

“Oh no – this isn’t happening, “ I thought to myself.

I felt the all too familiar clutch in my stomach and my sympathetic nervous system went into high gear. As a trauma survivor, I would vacillate between states of exhaustion and states of high alert. Years later I would learn from Peter A. Levine in his book, “In An Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness” that I was unable to regulate going from my sympathetic nervous system responsible for fight/flight and the parasympathetic nervous system which helps the body to return to a state of equanimity and calm.

With hands trembling, I dialed Mass. General. Even though Allison had taught me about breathing and the importance of taking deep breaths, my breaths were shallow. My hands sweaty. I had no control over what was happening to me.

“Hi. This is Mary McManus I received a call from your office.”
“One moment please – I’ll transfer you.”

“Hello is this Mrs. McManus?” a polite voice on the other end of the line asked me.

“Um yes well it seems that there is an abnormality on your mammogram. It looks like you have a mass of some kind. We need you to come in next week for a repeat mammogram.”

Okay Universe. What are you trying to tell me here? I examined my left breast and sure enough, I could feel a mass. I remembered the power of visualization from Bernie Siegel’s work and I figured I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by harnessing the power of visualization. I was on a mission – to heal whatever was going on in my left breast.

A week later I received the all clear. The mass disappeared. My 19 year old daughter said, "Okay mom. How much notice do you have to give at the VA? or are you going to wait for something else to happen?"

She was right! We circled May 25th on the calendar and the next day I gave my notice to my Nurse Manager, my Social Work Supervisor and the Chief of Social Work. At first my Nurse Manager was extremely supportive of me but the next day she told me that I couldn't possibly be serious about just leaving my career behind. She suggested that I work part time and really take time to think over my decision. I had already begun to clean out of my office and she was shocked to see the steps I had already taken to leave. She did not know that I was keeping a journal in which I imagined my life after the VA, that I had started "New World Greeting Cards", original poetry for every occasion and that I was getting ready to self publish my book of poetry.

"What if your husband gets laid off from his new job at Children's? You know how finicky the technology industry has been of late. And what about health insurance?"

I calmly told her my husband would carry the health insurance and there was a law recently passed that children could be covered until the age of 22 if they were in school.

Okay so maybe I did not calmly tell her these things. I was terrified but that's why it's called a leap of faith!

I withdrew my entire retirement account and took the penalty for early withdrawal. It was my seed money for my new venture and an investment in my future. As I told people, I was leaving the VA to heal my life only at the time I had no idea what that meant.

I was discharged from Outpatient Therapy at Spaulding Rehab the day before I was leaving the VA after almost 20 years of service. My physical therapist was leaving Spaulding to become a traveling PT. We hugged and we cried after our almost 6 month journey together of my reclaiming my life from the effects of childhood paralytic polio and trauma.

In October I hired a personal trainer to see if I could get a little stronger and build on the program from my outpatient therapist.

I could not even pass the initial assessment!

By February I had met my initial health and fitness goals and then...
From 'The Adventures of Runnergirl 1953':

Janine feverishly wrote down my goals, and we worked out a plan. She gathered up her belongings and had her hand on the door knob.

“Wait. I have one more goal.”

Janine stopped and turned around.

“I want to run the Boston Marathon for Spaulding Rehab Hospital. I know they have a Race for Rehab team and I want to do it next year.”

Did you ever have one of those moments when words fell out of your mouth after rising up from the depths of your soul without going through any thought process?

Janine was non-plussed. I don’t know what kept her from turning tail and getting as far away from me as she could. She came back into my house, set down her things and without missing a beat said, “Well the first thing you are going to need is a pair of running shoes.”

She laid out a cursory training plan and said that we would begin indoors to build up my cardio endurance. As soon as the weather got a little warmer, we’d go outdoors and I would learn how to run.

What had I just done?

I took ANOTHER leap of faith! I had never run a day in my life. I knew nothing about running a marathon let alone the Boston Marathon but I felt a stirring deep in my soul that running the 2009 Boston Marathon was my destiny...and it was.





From 'Feel the Heal: An Anthology of Poems to Heal Your Life':
What is so striking to me is that a poem I wrote in 2007 is now manifesting in physical reality. I write about the tremors being healed and having a strong core; creating myself anew and playing my game my rules (to quote Boston Marathon Race Director Dave McGillvray's favorite phrase that I only heard last year). At the time, I had not yet been discharged from Spaulding Rehab's outpatient care. I was told that I would need to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. I was by all appearances weak, deconditioned, wearing a leg brace, experiencing chronic fatigue and pain. Tremors were very evident at the time and yet, yet I wrote this poem that talks about the body falling away healed as I prepared to leave my award winning career as a VA social worker:

A Date With Destiny

Don’t wait til you die to let your soul fly free
please listen and hear what happened to me.
My body was broken every imaginable place
yet to the world always a smile on my face.
My soul trapped inside feeling it was broken too
God brought me out of darkness my light I shine on you.
She showed me the way through people I met
it took awhile a message hard to get.

The kingdom of heaven is right inside me
take the leap of faith fulfill destiny.
While I did my soul work and let my soul fly free
my body transformed changes did I see.
My head now aligned the tremor no more
my body aligned such strength in my core.
When once head detached from my heart and my soul
they all work together amazingly whole.
The rules that I live by are my rules alone
I found strength and courage the past now has flown.

I followed my heart to create myself anew
to feel simply Divine despite all I’ve lived through.
Take the leap of faith into grace I can fall
but I’m floating on air answering God’s call
Don’t wait til you die to let your soul fly free
there’s no reason to live a life in misery.
Follow your passions and I will tell you this
the body falls away healed when you follow your bliss.

When destiny called to me, I embraced all of my fears and harnessed the power of my faith and my village to leap into a future filled with health, well being, and wonderful adventures.

What is your date with destiny?

From my heart to yours
In health and wellness
Mary

Be sure to visit my website at www.marymcmanus.com

Be inspired by my interview with Kendra Petrone on the award winning Exceptional Women Show by following this link

To experience an epic race weekend and hear me share my journey from a wheelchair to the finish line of the 2009 Boston Marathon and beyond come to the Hyannis Marathon Weekend February 21-23 2020.