Most of you who have been lurkers or contributors on GRACE already know just how much this website has helped and continues to help patients and caregivers dealing with a lung cancer diagnosis. For many of us, GRACE and its brilliant faculty serve as a lifeline in unchartered shark-infested waters. My own involvement began on January 28, 2010 – - the day that my beautiful 58 years-young mother was diagnosed with Stage IIIA NSCLC-adenocarcinoma. That day, my world (and my family’s world) collapsed and became unbearably dark. Through our disbelief, sobs, and screams, we begged, pleaded, and bargained – - with God, with the Universe, with anyone who would listen. We were confused. We wanted to just wake-up from the nightmare that had become our reality. We didn’t quite understand what the doctors were telling us or how to process the information that was being relayed. During this time, even the physicians in my family fell eerily quiet. They were petrified. We all were petrified.

For me personally – - as my Mom’s only child – - I needed to understand what was going on and I needed to get some control over the “information.” I spent my days and insomnic nights surfing the Net – - trying to collect information and to learn what exactly it was that we were dealing with. The information that I kept coming across either was written for a scientific/medically-trained audience (which I am not) or was outdated or was trite, broad, and gloomy. Instead of helping me, I felt that it was slowly suffocating me.

And then came GRACE. . .

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