Mon 9 Mar, 2009
President Obama today signed an executive order authorizing the expansion of stem cell research, an act that gives hope to millions of people who live in what I like to call The Village of the Sick, people who suffer from illnesses and disorders for which there is no cure: many cancers, auto-immune disorders, Alzheimer’s disease, and so on. For people in this village, the idea of a cure is such a dim reality that news that someone, somewhere is trying to help gives us hope. In my case, I have Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, a blood cancer for which there is, as yet, no cure. NHL is a disease that can sometimes be managed for long periods of time. Research is ongoing and there are many more treatment options today than there were in 2001 when I was diagnosed with NHL
Today is a winning day for millions of people who live in the Village of the Sick. If you live in The Village of the Healthy, you take health for granted and illness is seen as a temporary nuisance. You take a pill and in short order, your health (the absence of pain, the absence of symptoms, the absence of the specter of your mortality) is quickly restored. If you live in The Village of the Sick, you can never forget that you live with our illness, you travel with it, you live with it. Your illness becomes your companion and in some cases, people can derive unimaginable strength from your infirmity. Yet no matter the strength of your adaptation to chronic disease, you still want to be cured, you still want to return to the Village of the Health, you hope against hope that a new discovery will sweeten your life and make it more normal.
Thank you President Obama for fueling the fire of that hope. Your gesture will give millions of people in the Village of Sick a strong and silent hope for the future. Thank you.