My Gratitude Since Surviving Cancer Is Great Enough to (Literally) Stop Traffic

By Hilary Locker Fussteig

Since I completed chemo for breast cancer in 2016, it’s safe to say that I haven’t been who I once was.

Scratch that.

Understatement.

Yes, cancer changes a person. If you’re lucky, you learn, like me, to slow down, say no, eat well, exercise regularly, detox your emotional life, and reorder your priorities. If like so many breast cancer patients, you have been chemically thrust into early menopause due to chemo and/or years of endocrine therapy, you also may contend with stiff joints, thinning hair, pelvic discomfort, and mood swings (although my mood swings sure as hell preceded the plummeting estrogen).

But there’s a “side effect” of my cancer experience that I never saw coming. One day, shortly after a post-treatment checkup with my oncologist, on my crosstown walk home, I stopped traffic. It wasn’t because I appeared chic in my wig — which admittedly looked more glamorous than my own hair ever did — or sexy in my 10-pounds-lighter body (thank you, chemo).

No.

I heard an ambulance trying to get through gridlock on Second Avenue, and, like a cheetah lunging for a gazelle, I leaped out into a sea of cars and trucks, stopped them with my hands in the air, and waved the ambulance through. When it was all over, I froze, and then trembled. This act of bravery/stupidity wasn’t something I had thought through. In fact, I don’t suppose I was operating on any kind of a conscious level.

As I walked home, stabilized myself, and came down from my heroic yet bizarre high, I realized that I had experienced pure animal instinct. Something like fight or flight. But the fight wasn’t mine. I had two young sons and a husband at home — they are the people I go to bat for.

I have no idea who was in the ambulance that day. An octogenarian in cardiac arrest? EMTs on their way to a child who’d been hit in the head with a baseball? Someone overdosing? A woman in labor? I couldn’t fathom why on earth I cared about a stranger so much that I was willing to jeopardize my own safety, and potentially hurt my family, especially after having just survived cancer. It made no sense. But it was visceral, and I couldn’t help it.

There are so many times when traffic in this impossible city impedes the paths of rescue vehicles. Each time, I try to take a breath and stop myself from intervening, thinking this could be the time I get injured and need the ambulance. But more often than not, six years later, there I am, in the middle of things, windmilling my wild arms.

As I walked home, stabilized myself, and came down from my heroic yet bizarre high, I realized that I had experienced pure animal instinct.

Make no mistake. I am neither Mother Theresa nor anyone else you can name who helps save the masses. I am just one woman helping one ambulance or fire truck at a time when I happen to be in the right (wrong?) place at the right (wrong?) time. But I am doing something helpful, whether I like it or not.

Perhaps surviving cancer has burst my heart open in a way that cannot be sutured. Perhaps I am so grateful to the doctors and nurses who saved my life that I cannot fathom someone else losing theirs.

I haven’t broached the subject with my family or friends, all of whom would likely disapprove. What are the ethics of this anyway? Maybe my energy would be better and more safely spent working on ways to improve New York City’s infrastructure so that emergency responders can get where they need to go faster.

That feels…appropriate. But not effective in the moment. I don’t even know the legality of what I have done. I might be an irrational Good Samaritan, or maybe I can get a ticket for this behavior, which technically is disobeying crosswalk signals. Let no good deed go unpunished, no?

Just when I’d sworn off this risky habit for the new year, I was crossing West 72nd Street this week when no fewer than three ambulances needed to get through in all different directions within a few minutes of one another.

On cue, I stepped into the street, held up my hands, and flailed my arms as all of the vehicles made their way out of the jam. Despite my behavior, no one gawked, reprimanded me, or even looked up from their phones. Just another crazy cog in a big, crazy wheel.

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Hilary Locker Fussteig is a former editor at Parenting magazine.