Am re-reading this tremendous book. Lucy Grealy was nine when she found out she had a rare form of cancer. Hospitalized multiple times over her life, Lucy died in 2002 at age 39. Safe to say her life wasn't an easy one. Imagine you're a child one day and the next you're trying not to cry when you go in for chemo.
Here's an interview she did with Charlie Rose in 1994.
Re-reading the scenes from her early hospitalizations, I can't help but get fixated on this: how she stayed overnight for as much as several weeks at a time. Major surgery these days often gets one home in a matter of hours. (So there's that little comparison to changes in healthcare.)
Beyond that it's a challenging lesson: What would it truly be like to have such an obvious disfigurement? Lucy died of a drug overdose. Clearly she acted out her pain and struggle. Outside looking in, it's so easy to judge. I'd like to think I'd rely on inner strength and beauty. But admittedly the pressures to focus on the exteriors, the faces of our lives, is great.
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