I want to thank the remarkable people – patients, caregivers, and everyone else – from this board for their unending support during the time Will was fighting this disease and now, for your overwhelming kindness to me.
Having lived in Israel & Australia, where melanoma is epidemic, I long had a fear of this disease. 3 years ago, I lost one of my dearest friends to it, after a courageous 9 month battle during which the cancer responded to absolutely nothing. As she was guardian to her brother's 3 children – he and his wife had been killed in a car accident a year before – this disease seemed to me a vicious, relentless thief.
Will, and his fight, became a part of me in a way that I guess only caregivers can quite understand. No matter where I was or what I was doing, all of my love and attention really belonged to him. Will's lifelong fight for autonomy and independence astonished me in it's focus, and he brought the same courage to the fight against this disease. But he could not do the research, find the resources, and weigh the many variables needed to really battle this monster, and that is where you all provided the most invaluable help. My only regret is that I didn't find this board far earlier, and that is a profound regret.
Right now I am feeling, as Jung said, "a fatal resistence to life in this world." I miss him too desperately to imagine getting through this day, let alone those which may come. For anyone who didn't know Will, but might like to, here are two – very incomplete – pieces I wrote about him
I will keep checking this board because I care so about all of you and because I need to stay connected to you. I owe all of you more than I could ever possibly repay.
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