Remember how I recently mentioned that a couple of weeks ago I spent a really terrific evening hanging out with Mary Beth Williams of Salon (which was actually yet another excuse to enthuse about how completely crazy I am about that woman)? Well, over those few hours and several beers at the bar at Fanelli's in SoHo, she ran down for me what was going on with her medically -- how her battle with stage 4 melanoma was going. The bottom line is that it's not going well, although in some ways it's going very well. I guess you need to actually have cancer or be close to someone who does to understand how such a paradox is possible.
But if there's anyone who can make it make sense for you, it's Mary Beth. And she's doing just that in Salon right now, in a piece she's written about the traumas, terrors and occasional triumphs of undergoing a clinical trial and being essentially a medical experiment -- at the mercy of doctors and drug companies who are trying to make history while you're just trying to make it from one day to the next in the hope that it'll all add up to a lifetime.
You just have no idea how much I'm pulling for her.
Salon: My Life as a Lab Rat/11.24.11
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