Jennifer Verano sat quietly in a room filled with her police officer peers and listened intently to what was happening around her even as she was completely engaged in the dialogue.
Her eyes sparkled with the sheer joy of living on her own terms and her aura blossomed petals of love, empathy and good energy to anyone who was around her. She vibrated on an open level not seen on too many, and her path to this place of peace fully explains why.
Verano was hired as an openly gay police officer in June of 1990, after becoming homeless for disclosing to her family how she identified. The searing hurt from that incident still brought tears to her eyes, even as she was happy to disclose that they have made amends over the years.
On November 4, 2001, she was diagnosed with stage 4B Hodgkin’s disease involving all four quadrants and her bone marrow.
Her doctors were “excited” to give her 7 years to live, and when it struck Verano that if she was going to live beyond the death sentence handed to her, she had to have a team of doctors who believed she could. Armed with that thought, she fired every doctor that was negative in word and deed, and developed her own team.
“I believe a diagnosis is just that, and we get to choose how we manage it moving forward. I needed people who believed in my will to live.” She did her research and chose a team that saved her life through her private doctor Mark Watkins, winding up at Penn Medicine.
She had a stem cell transplant in October 2002 and has been in remission since.
They believed in her, told her that she was going to live, and 17 years later — 10 more than what was originally given to her — she is still here thriving in ways that would stun the average person.
“I had friends who died during 9/11 in New York City,” Verano said. “They were in the fire department and [were] police officers, and went into buildings to rescue people, while knowing they would never make it out alive, and so when I was diagnosed in November of that same year, I chose to fight in honor of their selflessness.”
Verano made a commitment as she was seeing her doctor every six months for the rest of her life, that if she lived to see the age of 50, she would take the daunting trek to hike the famous Kilimanjaro mountain in Tanzania.
“I live my life in 6 month increments and wish more people would,” Verrano said.
“I was a throwaway kid because I was gay, but my cancer diagnosis brought my family back together,” she continued. “My mother walked me down the aisle when I was getting married, in the church that fed me when I was homeless. It is beyond a miracle.” Verano kept creating bucket lists and would always surpass them, so in keeping with the promise she made to herself, when she turned 50, she was able to connect with a group heading up to Kilimanjaro through the Leukemia Society that would summit on the 17th anniversary of her stem cell transplant. She took that as a sign, and forged ahead on what would become a life changing experience for her.
By her own admission, it was not an easy climb — she was one of the oldest, had to train hard, her hands were frozen to the point of excruciating pain despite all the precautions taken, and her lips were burned to blisters from the intense cold the further up she trudged with her guide.
When she finally hit the summit with her tour guide, she reported that it felt like angels were up there with her and it counts as a lifetime experience, she will never forget. It was her big “living out loud,” which is something she does every day since her diagnosis.
“ It was me and thousands of stars at the top,” Verano said. “I had the music of Barbara Streisand and Queen in my head, to keep me going. At one point, I lost my guide and felt someone pushed me. Thousands of angels helped me to the top.”
When asked what would she tell others who are diagnosed with illnesses, she looked at me and said, “Never give up. We control our destiny, and even if we end up dying, we can CHOOSE how to LIVE.”
Indeed.
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