A very personal open letter to Trump Supporters,

I’m not perfect — I’m the first person to admit it! I am, however, a person who loves America. That’s why I enlisted in the Army National Guard after 9/11, despite having a debilitating history of panic attacks that had been haunting me for years. It even prevented me from finishing my college degree, despite only having a few classes left.

I forced myself to push through this fear to help my country. I knew I wasn’t dumb — I got a nice score on the ASVAB, had a decent SAT score, and got admitted to good universities — but despite these qualities, my panic attacks forced the Army to release me early despite my willingness to push through my disease. Upon my medical discharge, I did as the Army docs advised: sought psychiatric help and finished school. I finished my undergrad degree and in time moved on to earn a PhD.

While in grad school, there were many students who were anti-military. I proudly defended the services, not necessarily the military culture, but the people who idealistically chose to serve, regardless of their political affiliation, to protect our freedoms and our rights.

This country was founded on freedom — whether freedom from religious persecution or freedom to believe in enlightened philosophies. I support that USA.

While in grad school, I was lucky enough to get an academic advisor who was a smart, successful, and well-respected faculty member. She also worked with the armed forces. When it came time to choose between an academic, industry, or a government research career, I asked her about funding and research opportunities and she quickly introduced me to Air Force research. Soon enough, she became my research advisor and I finished my PhD with a new job as a mathematician at the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL).

I loved my AFRL job. I loved the work I did and I loved (most) of the people I worked with. I disliked some of the federal policies right from the start. You see, I’m a high achiever and perfectionist and I don’t like seeing people take advantage of the system. It was a disconcerting experience to witness so much adversity in my position. I was told to follow the “chain of command,” but different “leaders” would tell me “different” interpretations of a law or rule.

I became so frustrated by the inconsistent leadership message, that I began to memorize the appropriate policy and often sought the advice of the Judge Advocate’s (JAG) office website (and sometimes staff) to interpret the information. Armed with this new information, I thought my issues would be resolved. Instead, I became a pariah for repeating the “JAG-approved interpretations” — reprimanded for being “disrespectful” or “lacking tact” for citing facts to a leader. I had enough support from good leaders and mentors to continue in the lab despite my negative experiences.

Around that time, my health began to decline. In fact, as soon as I had started working on base, I noticed that my sleep patterns were changing. I’d been accustomed to sleeping 6-hrs or less for most of my life. My father is the same way and he’s well into his sixties now — so naturally I assumed that my sleep experience would be similar. Unfortunately, at thirty, I began to need more sleep than usual; often sleeping through alarms and showing up late for class or work.

My friends on-base joked that I was just getting older: I was in my early thirties after all.

Unfortunately, my tardiness not only became habitual but my medical symptoms got worse. I developed late-onset familial hypertriglyceridemia, asthma, gallstone-pancreatitis, splenic granulomas, joint paint, idiopathic angioedema, worsening fatigue, and weight gain. No matter what I tried, my illness would not subside.

After a battery of tests, a few blood test results suggested that I had mild Lupus possibly complicated by the skin form of a little-known disease called mastocytosis. One of my many doctors suggested I was working too hard and my symptoms were stress-related — everything would go back to normal after some weight loss and relaxation. After telling my supervisor that my house tested positive for high levels of formaldehyde, he suggested I simply move to another place. After long discussions with my family and doctor friends, including my primary care doctor at the time, I made the decision to leave my research job, leave Ohio and move to upstate NY where my parents had a rental home that was not attracting good renters.

Although I only intended on staying in NY for a short time, I ended up finally getting diagnosed with an accurate condition that would explain everything! A liver biopsy and specialized blood tests confirmed that I had stage-4 primary biliary cholangitis (formerly cirrhosis). By the time the official diagnosis came — I was dangerously cirrhotic: my biopsy showed bridging fibrosis with regenerative nodule formation; imaging scans show that my spleen and liver are moderately enlarged, my heart is mildly enlarged, and that I have interstitial lung disease and mild-lymphadenopathy; my blood tests results show positive-AMAs, positive-ANAs, elevated-rheumatoid factors among other results such as Hypergammaglobulinemia, low-calcium and low-vitamin-D; and my urine tests suggest muscle-wasting and starvation.

This diagnosis finally explained everything I had been experiencing since my move to Ohio over 9 years ago!

I didn’t blame anyone for my illness. I had the wrong genes, moved to the worst possible city — genetic PBC is typically activated or worsened by toxins or bacteria found in the spores of feces from birds like geese which are found in abundance in Dayton — and took medication that has recently been found to hurt the liver.

Although there are several medications that help prolong the survival of PBC patients ­– they typically don’t work on people with decompensated livers. I most likely have a decompensated liver but I still take the medication. Although some of my liver function test results have improved, ongoing research show that disease progression to a decompensated liver state also show improved LFT’s.

The only hope for my survival is a liver transplant. If the new liver is well-received, I will be able to resume my old life again in time but will need to take anti-rejection medication for the rest of my life.

I recently turned 40. I never thought that 40 could be my last year of life.

Although I work from home as a freelance mathematician, science writer and editor now; I can no longer produce the work output that I could when I was healthy. Before becoming critically ill, I often worked 60-hrs/wk at AFRL, 15-hrs/wk as an adjunct at Wright State University, played in intra-mural sports teams and often volunteered for at least 10-hrs/wk. I was also a foster parent — until the strain of my unknown illness soon began to weaken my ability to be a good parent.

Although my foster kids are now over 18 and are still part of my life and my extended family’s life, I feel like I could have done so much more for them had I been healthy.

In fact, I think I can do so much more if I’m given the chance to be healthy again.

And that is the point of this long story: I may never get that chance. With Trump’s new policy on selecting NIH studies, a cure for PBC, a rare-illness, may never found. With Trump’s new gag-orders on federal scientists, I can no longer work as a science journalist who interviews government scientists. With Trump’s executive order against refugees, my intelligent and highly-educated cousin from Peru, who is currently stuck in a refugee detention center in Texas, will have her refugee application denied and be deported. She will be forced to return to Peru, where a group of people are threatening her and her small children because they believe her Psychology practice goes against their religious ideologies. With Trump’s insistence on removing the ban on pre-existing illness from the health care act, I will likely become uninsurable and be unable to receive a life-saving liver transplant.

After all I have done for my country, my society and my planet; my new president is telling me: “You and people like you are not worthy of living.”

Although my story is sad, I’m sure I don’t have the saddest story out there. Ask yourself this though: Is this lady, and the countless others like her, an acceptable loss for my ideology? Is she just collateral damage? Truly think about what Trump is doing:

1. Censoring the media that he JUDGES is lying — relying on the

faith of his supporters to believe him.

2. Silencing the highly-educated and world-renown scientists that

he JUDGES are studying the wrong science — relying on the faith of his

supporters to believe him.

3. Preventing the legal immigration of candidates that he JUDGES

are terrorists — relying on the faith of his supporters to believe

him.

4. Defunding the medical services that he JUDGES should not be

funded — relying on the faith of his supporters to believe him.

He does not use scientific fact or statistical evidence to support his allegations. I recently contacted the political polling agency, Rassmussen, which is the only statistics he cites, to inquire about their mathematical methods and they refuse to answer me! He contradicts the US Constitution with his Executive orders and actions. When I inquired about each instance on his White house “contact me” link, he never responded. He surrounds himself with people known to be racist, sexist, exclusionary, elitist, radical, and unlawful. When asked about his entourage’s history, he and his staff essentially tell journalists — “Shut-up!” much like ten-year-olds respond to mocking. Are these the kinds of actions you want from the President of the United States? These are NOT the kind of attitudes and actions I want from my president and I am not alone. I am just one voice in this protest, but I hope that my story and my analysis helps you understand many of the citizens who protest Trump. I leave you with this final thought:

It’s perverse sociopaths that have done horrible things to our country. These people exist in Government, in Social Service, in Religion, in Private Industry, in Corporations, in Universities, in the Democratic party, in the Republican party, in the Independent party, in Congress, in Russia, in Germany, in New Zealand, in Peru, in America,… Let’s stand together against the INDIVIDUALS and not the IDEOLOGIES. Every ideology will have a person within it who, if given the power, will perverse the very foundation of its message. STOP supporting THESE PEOPLE! Trump and the set of Perverse Sociopaths he associates with ARE using the Presidential and Legislative power of America to PERVERSE the ideology inherent in the US constitution. Don’t let AMERICA become the fourth Reich!

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Analee Miranda