By Stel Bailey | Environmental Health Advocate
Sometimes a calling grips you so tightly that logic cannot explain it, and yet you feel powerless to ignore it. I lived this truth as my family faced an unrelenting wave of cancer diagnoses that reshaped every part of our lives. In a single year, we became both caregivers and patients, thrust into hospital rooms, treatments, and endless questions about how this could happen to us.
When I finally learned I was in remission, I expected relief. Instead, I felt an unshakable pull to understand why cancer had struck us so violently. Late at night, when I longed for peace and prayed for my family to emerge from the shadows of illness, the questions only grew louder. Why us? Why here?
Doctors who examined me during chemotherapy often asked about where I lived. Their curiosity lingered in my mind, cutting deeper than the needles that pierced my skin. They saw something unusual. So did I.
Connecting the Dots
My search for answers carries me to the Florida Space Coast, the place I call home, with generations of my family rooted here. In Satellite Beach, I uncovered a chilling record: more than thirty cases of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma had been documented there in the 1990s. The same disease that my sibling and I both fought. It was no longer possible to dismiss my family’s experience as chance.
This discovery became a turning point. What started as a personal journey for meaning evolved into a mission for truth. I followed every lead and every story, determined to trace the hidden patterns that others overlooked or ignored.
From Survivor to Advocate
Faith sustained me through the uncertainty. Each new connection, each patient, survivor, or grieving family I encountered, strengthened my resolve. Slowly, I uncovered how toxic pollution had seeped into the soil, water, and air of my hometown. The same beaches where I once watched space shuttles launch were tainted by contaminants left behind by industries and the Department of Defense.
I never imagined becoming an advocate for environmental justice. Yet this path placed me alongside Erin Brockovich, speaking before crowds and testifying before Congress about the devastation in Brevard County. Each step carried me closer to the sense of peace I had sought since remission.
Living With Purpose
Purpose is not always easy. At times, the weight of this work has threatened to break me, tempting me to retreat. But survival itself reminds me of why I continue. Cancer gave me more than scars; it gave me a responsibility to speak for those who cannot.
While many chase status or wealth, I discovered a different kind of fulfillment. To live with purpose is to feel called into something larger than yourself. For me, that purpose is to uncover the hidden truths of my community and shine light where there has been too much darkness.
I cannot leave this world without honoring that calling. The lives lost, the children sickened, the families left behind, they deserve justice. And my survival demands I fight for nothing less.
