Of Dragons and Garden Peas

When Les Sarnoff first told me that his cancer had returned and he was going to take a leave of absence for treatment, I remembered this article I'd heard about.

Published in March of 1981, it was written by Alice Trillin, the wife of one of my favorite writers, Calvin Trillin, after she was diagnosed with lung cancer. The essay was based on a talk she gave to medical students at Cornell and Albert Einstein Medical schools, and it is included in the curriculum at many medical schools to this day, to give students a patient's perspective of a cancer diagnosis.

I really wanted Les to have it.

To my horror, I discovered that it is impossible to find on the internet. I couldn't even purchase it from the New England Journal of Medicine, where it was originally published. I found lots of references to it, all singing it's praises, but no copies of the full article.

It drove me crazy. Of all the content that's at your fingertips online, from Shakespeare to kitties falling into fish tanks -- THIS is nowhere to be found?

Finally I gave up on the internet, and started calling. I called libraries, universities, hospitals all over Oregon. And finally, I found it -- in the archives of Providence Cancer Center, the very place where Les was getting treatment.

With many thanks to Amy Roth and Diane Wiesner...
Here it is.