Minnesotan To Meet: Caryn Sullivan On Being Better, Not Bitter
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- It's usually the hard stories that are worth telling, because you learn something. No one says that better than Caryn Sullivan.
She went from a promising lawyer to a stay-at-home health advocate for both her children to a widow.
It's how she's using those experiences that make Sullivan this week's Minnesotan to Meet.
Her quiet Eagan house is dotted with pictures of happy times, but each picture perfect moment tells a story.
"I've gotten to a place where I write a lot about people dealing with challenges in life, or people helping others who are dealing with challenges. That's been really healing for me," Sullivan said.
Sullivan is an author and speaker. Her columns on navigating health issues or charity trips appear in the Pioneer Press on her blog and now something bigger.
"I've been a hermit the last six months or so because I've been working on this book," Sullivan said.
It's been a long journey to this point that started in 1993.
"When I heard that he had autism, I didn't know what that meant," Sullivan said, "I just knew that it wasn't good."
Sullivan's son, Jack, was diagnosed with the disorder at two years old while she was pregnant with her daughter.
"I really became an advocate for my son," Sullivan said.
That meant a total change in identity. Sullivan had been at the top of her professional game as a lawyer.
"I took a leave of absence and a few months later Julia was born, so I had two kids and two step kids," Sullivan said.
Juggling new challenges came the unthinkable in 1998 with her husband, Ted.
"My husband had his first heart attack," Sullivan said, "Over the course of the next 12 to 13 years he was in and out of the hospital, getting one stent after another until he had seven stents."
Sullivan also fought breast cancer in 2003. After undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, she beat it.
"I was just getting back into the rhythm of life in summer of 2004, Julia, who was 10 at the time, started to be very sluggish," Sullivan said.
After being bounced around clinics for months, there was finally an answer.
"Julia had an extremely rare disease called PNH -- Proxizmible Noxtermal Hemoglobia. It typically afflicts adults and has to do with red blood cells," Sullivan said.
Julia needed a blood marrow transplant. Jack was a perfect match, but the struggles didn't stop there.
"Jack had been my focus up until Julia got sick," Sullivan said.
Julia still needed treatment for years.
"When Julia was sick, we spent a lot of time together and it was a blessing in a way because it gave me time to bond with my daughter," Sullivan said.
Finally, as the family was finding its footing, Sullivan went to visit her brother out east. But more bad news struck.
"I got a call that Ted had been taken to the hospital and died of a heart attack," Sullivan said.
As she was deciding how to handle telling the kids, the hospital called home and accidentally broke the news to Julia, who was home alone and in high school.
"That was probably one of the worst conversations of my life," Sullivan said.
Seventy-six days later, her good friend's husband also passed away. The two widows attended a benefit at St. Thomas Academy.
"I met this priest and kind of unloaded my whole story on him -- poor man," Sullivan said.
When she asked him why some families endure so much heartache, he gave her advice she's never forgotten.
"'In the face of adversity we have a choice, we can be bitter or we can be better,'" Sullivan said.
It is now in the name of her book: "Bitter or Better: Grappling with Life on the Op-Ed Page."
Now, Sullivan's family is better in big ways.
Jack is thriving at a Fraser apartment, living independently. Julia is studying abroad in Ireland. Sullivan has taken two volunteer missions to Peru -- one with The Starkey Hearing Foundation the other with the Smile Network.
Her step children have now gotten married and she's even a grandma.
Sullivan chooses to be better in small ways, too.
"I buy myself flowers every week," she said.
Her constant companion since her husband's Ted's death, is a British Cream retriever. And she gives herself exercise breaks while writing her book.
She lives for the day and plans for the future, a message she hopes comes across in her writing.
The book will hopefully be done in April.
Sullivan is actually really shy and originally wanted it to just be about her columns and the work she does for numerous charities, but her editor heard her story and told her to re-write it!