While many of us spend an inordinate amount of time communicating on social media, we also bemoan its negative impacts. Social media can be a deluge of both misinformation and disinformation, starkly dividing our country. It also has a tendency to bring out a level of meanness in people that is less commonly seen in face-to-face communication. Fortunately, there are also examples of positive things happening on social media: It’s great for finding your lost skis, dog, or reconnecting with friends from the past. And if you wake up and say, “Was that an earthquake?,” you can jump on Facebook and there will already be 20 reports from others on where it was and the magnitude. And once in a while, social media brings out the best in people.
Help for Desperate Parents
When she was almost 13 years old, former North Tahoe resident Chaise Crus developed anorexia. “It went from bad to severe almost overnight,” said her mother Rachel (Crus) Page, a family law attorney in Tahoe City. She attempted to help her daughter on her own, but when that didn’t work, Rachel turned to a day treatment program in Reno. Within 10 days, Rachel was told her daughter needed more help than the program could provide. She needed a full-time residential facility, and quickly.
“We spent three full days calling every place we could find in the country,” said Rachel. “There were only two beds available.”
The closest was in Orem, Utah. Treatment programs in California at the time had a 12-week waiting list. It was the beginning of Covid and eating disorders had jumped 400%. So, the family packed up and relocated to Utah, and Rachel sold her house to pay the medical bills.
“Once we moved, we got a lot of judgment for tearing her away from her friends, but to us, it was about the life of a child,” said Rachel. “We were in a fight for her life. I’d been a single mom for years, struggling with costs and holding on to a house for the kids while building my practice. I just didn’t have the resources to stay in the house.”
She left Tahoe, which had been her home for 25 years, and moved hundreds of miles away to a place where she knew no one. “I didn’t have the support I needed,” she said. And then a friend told her about a Facebook group for the families of those with eating disorders.
It became a lifeline. Rachel found that she could fall apart and the people in the group would pick her up. She had a place where she could ask questions, learn, and find hope from those who had gone through what she was going through.
“I wasn’t alone while struggling with the challenges of a child with severe eating disorders,” she said.
She calls the fellow members of the group the Warrior Mamas, and says that they have been incredible pillars of support throughout her ordeal.
Fortunately, after 4 months in the facility, Chaise recovered and now, 3 years later, she is a healthy and happy 16-year-old thriving in school in Ketchum, Idaho, where the family moved to after Rachel remarried. Rachel remains active in the group that helped her so much. Now she is a Warrior Mama, passing on love and support to those going through what she experienced.
While Chaise’s story is a success, Rachel says it’s important to note that it is also a prime example of the yin and yang of social media. Although it provided a place of refuge for a scared mom, social media is also a significant contributor to the prevalence of eating disorders. It tends to promote unhealthy body images and encourages the desire to be popular by meeting unrealistic expectations for beauty and weight. “It is very hard for kids to accept themselves as they are,” said Rachel.
Bringing Awareness to Litter
For many years, long-time Truckee photographer Court Leve lamented the litter we see in our communities. Then one day in 2019 his dog emerged from one of his frequent dips in the Truckee River carrying a plastic Gatorade bottle, and Leve decided that enough was enough. He started the Truckee Tahoe Litter Group on Facebook that very day, with his bottle-toting dog as the star. “I didn’t have any idea where it was going to go,” he recalled. “I can’t say it changed everything, but it raised awareness of the issue and moved the needle.”
The litter group quickly grew, eventually reaching 3,500 members, with Leve and many others posting images of litter atrocities. It became especially active during the early years of Covid when more people were spending time outdoors and not being responsible with their trash.
“It was good at getting noticed,” said Leve.
The publicity put the issue in the public eye, and eventually the word got out to local public agencies that litter was something that needed to be better dealt with.
“Back in 2020, the Truckee Tahoe Litter Group grew very quickly and caught the attention of town staff, making it clear that litter reduction was a community priority, and that the town needed to take action to support this effort,” said Melanie Grebitus, sustainability program analyst for the Town of Truckee.
Since that time, the Town of Truckee contracted with Clean Tahoe to expand litter clean-up efforts, and started a program called SeeClickFix where the public can quickly report trash and litter as well as other issues to the town, and organized volunteer cleanup efforts. Residents can report trash issues to seeclickfix.com/truckee.
Finding Support Through Cancer
Julie Conover began skiing at Lake Tahoe in the 1960s, and after moving to the lake full time in 1978, she worked in marketing and communication for what was then-known as Squaw Valley. Now retired, she and her husband, David, spend their winters as nomads, buying one-way overseas tickets to various places around the world. In December 2019, they flew to Melbourne, Australia, then went off to Tasmania for the winter.
In March of 2020, “Covid started to be a thing. We were afraid to go through Melbourne because the city was a hot bed of the disease,” she said.
They chose to fly to the more remote city of Perth in Western Australia just before the world started to lock down.
She soon felt that they were “winning the Covid lottery,” Conover said. “It was awesome being in Australia. They handled it correctly. They didn’t let people in, thus effectively shutting down the transmission of the virus.”
The couple rented a two-bedroom condo and settled in for several months before traveling to other parts of the country. That’s when Conover realized she was having a problem with one eye. She went in for a checkup with an optometrist, who referred her to an expert, who discovered that it was choroidal ocular melanoma — a rare and potentially deadly eye disease. She went through treatment, hoping that it would not metastasize.
While she waited to see if the regimen worked, she decided to adopt two mantras: “Every little thing was going to be all right,” and “If not now, when?” So the couple set off for 6 months of camping around Australia. When they returned to Perth for a PET scan, tumors were discovered in her liver and vertebrae. Everything was not all right. “Things were lighting up. That is when my chances of survival were just 15%.” Conover also faced side effects from the medication that was needed to save her life such as intense inflammation that causes serious skin rashes, high fevers, and intense itching.
“It feels like in a dream when you are going through this. You want to be positive but can’t help but be fearful,” she said. “I was debating whether to say something on Facebook, but then I got to a place where I was comfortable sharing and wanted my friends to know. For me it was a great gift to share it. People came out of the woodwork from all over the world, from all sectors of my life. I really do think there is something in that energy of people telling you, ‘You got this! If anyone can beat this, you can!’”
While she had been posting stories of their winter adventures for years, now she let her social media friends “see the reality that life is so up and down,” said Conover.
In the spring of 2022, after 2 years in Australia, they returned home for her cancer treatment in the Bay Area. Eventually they made it back to the lake. “Coming back to Tahoe was great,” said Conover. “I felt like everybody knew what I was going through. It was so nice running into people who were up to date. It saved me from having to explain things to people individually.”
Conover felt that telling her story during Covid helped people to keep their own lives in perspective. And how we should be thankful for every day. She certainly is thankful now that she has been out of treatment for a year, and so far, is cancer free.
