By Jonathan Lin The Jersey Journal
Marcy Borders, the woman known as the “Dust Lady” from the iconic photo snapped of her, covered in dust, shortly after she escaped from the Twin Towers, wears the wig she received from the Mo’ Hair Foundation, after losing her hair from chemotherapy for stomach cancer. Reena Rose Sibayan The Jersey Journal
September 11. Depression. Alcohol. Drugs. And now stomach cancer.
That’s the latest challenge facing Marcy Borders, the woman known by most as the “Dust Lady” from the iconic photo taken of her, distraught and covered in dust, shortly after she escaped from the Twin Towers.
After her traumatic experience, the 41-year-old Bayonne native fell into a decade-long depression that led her to abuse alcohol and drugs. In 2011, she checked into rehab, and has stayed clean since, she told The Jersey Journal today.
Borders said she was just getting back into the working world — helping with a candidate’s local campaign for mayor earlier this year — when her doctor told her in late August that she had stomach cancer.
“My first thing to him was: ‘Can I live?'” she said. “(He said) ‘It’s contained to the stomach. It’s not spreading. We caught it really early on.'”
Last week, Borders completed the first phase of her treatment, chemotherapy. She’ll undergo surgery in the second phase in early December, and then undergo radiation and chemotherapy in the third and final phase, she said.
She said she has already racked up $190,000 in medical bills that she can’t pay, as she has neither a job nor health insurance.
“I try not to cry – $190,000 already and I still haven’t had surgery, and I still need more chemo,” Borders said, in tears.
“Why can’t this be over?” she said. “I’m tired. I’m just tired.”
Borders said she’s now at a point where she can’t even afford to fill her prescription medicine bottles, and that she only gets the minimum number of pills needed to get rid of her gas, her nausea and her pain.
“I take it when needed,” she said. “I can’t afford to take as it’s prescribed.”
At one point, she wondered aloud if her cancer was related to 9/11.
“I’m saying to myself ‘Did this thing ignite cancer cells in me?'” she said. “I definitely believe it because I haven’t had any illnesses. I don’t have high blood pressure…high cholesterol, diabetes.”
“How do you go from being healthy to waking up the next day with cancer?” she asked, before breaking down in sobs.
Despite the difficulties, Borders added that she hasn’t been alone in her struggles.
Shortly after losing her hair because of chemo, the Mo’ Hair Foundation, a Jersey City-based nonprofit, helped her out by fitting her with a free wig, which she said made her feel much better.
“I felt so normal,” she said. “I didn’t look like cancer. I didn’t feel like cancer.”
The foundation’s goal is to help “children and adults suffering from hair loss caused by various medical conditions and who cannot afford a hair transplant or non-surgical hair replacement services,” according to its website.
In addition, Borders said her relationships with her partner, Donald Edwards, and her kids, 21-year-old Noelle and 6-year-old Zay-den, are still strong. They are struggling together to help her overcome the cancer, she said.
When asked if she ever looked at the “Dust Lady” photo of herself that in hindsight seems to depict the beginning of her misfortunes, Borders said she avoided doing so as much as possible.
“I try to take myself from being a victim to being a survivor now. I don’t want to be a victim anymore,” she said.
