StoryCorps at SHC: Julisa Voinche & Rob Gilroy

Julisa Voinche (JV): Rob, when we first met, I was an athlete and I had built my entire life around becoming a skilled ice dancer. I would tell people that they didn't know what they were missing because it was like flying with your feet on the ground, that's what gliding felt like to me. I remember I took you to the ice rink once and...

Rob Gilroy (RG): I wasn't exactly flying with my feet on the ground, but it was still fun.

JV: You were falling with your feet on the ground.

RG: Yes.

JV: But I ended up becoming severely anemic about 10 years into our relationship, and I was hemorrhaging every month due to these fibroids that were in my uterus. I took six months trying to decide whether or not I wanted to go through with surgery.

RG: You ultimately decided, well, the fibroids have to come out, so let's go ahead and do it.

JV: Yeah, so I did. But after my surgery, I knew something was really wrong. I was in so much pain, I couldn't sit down, I couldn't skate, I couldn't hike, I couldn't walk without these parts in my pelvis being pulled on and it was freaking me out. For five years, I went through every body work and everything that I could think of, and this pelvic floor physical therapist said to me, "I think you might have something called adhesions. The only way we'll know is you have to be opened up again." The surgery was five and a half hours long, and it was pretty horrific. Follow-up visits, they would ask, "Are you better?" And I said, "No, I'm still in a lot of pain." And so, I was starting to get really frightened, because I knew this pain was a life sentence and I did not think I could handle it. I started to have nightmares at night about surgeries and it was terrifying, and I remember laying on the living room floor and thinking, I just want to die so badly.

RG: There was a sense of hopelessness that persisted for quite some time, and I remember feeling so much like I wish there was just some other way I could help you, but not knowing how.

JV: Yeah. I was in the voluntary psychiatric ward for 10 days, and I felt a lot of compassion for the suffering I saw around me. Then I completed that eight-week program and I thought, I have to do something with my life, I've got to make this pain count for something. I started finding ways in which I was being called on to help other people. So little by little, I started to take on more responsibilities working for NAMI, the National Alliance for Mental Illness, and teaching nursing students and presenting for them, but even more importantly, going into the psychiatric wards and sitting with people who were just like the people that I was surrounded by when I was inpatient.

Without the pain, I recognized just how shallow my life was. It was really about ice dancing and feeling accomplished and feeling fit, and I miss those things a lot, but I don't think I ever would've grown or matured and I don't think I would've seen through to other people suffering and not want to run away from it.

RG: It's been so hard and so painful, and yet I'm so impressed by the service that you've been able to provide others in ministering to them to help them with their pain. It's just wonderful, beautiful to see that, and it's just a real privilege for me to share it with you.

JV: I'm pretty clear on what I'm going to use the rest of my life for, and I thank God every day that you're there with me and that I don't have to do this alone.

RG: Yes, we're in this together.

Produced by Stanford Health Care with interviews recorded in collaboration with StoryCorps, a national nonprofit whose mission is to preserve and share humanity's stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world www.storycorps.org

Sound Editor: Emily Hsiao

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