Lucy Grealy's Story of Her Cancer

In Autobiography of a Face, we are provided with the story of Lucy Grealy's first-hand recollection of her childhood and adult experiences with a facially disfiguring cancer called "Ewing's sarcoma." Grealy learns she has cancer at the age of nine. She will spend the next twenty years being treated for cancer, including surgical removal of nearly half her jaw, intensive chemotherapy treatments, and more than two dozen cosmetic surgeries. Grealy's account of her ordeal takes us through her home, school, and hospital experiences as she tries to recuperate from a form of cancer with a 5% survival rate. Ironically, even though the hospital represents numerous, painful operations and procedures, it becomes Lucy's greatest refuge against a superficial world's judgment of her disfigured appearance.

Grealy's home life becomes unstable as her ordeal in dealing with her serious illness plays a part in disrupting family dynamics. Lucy not only blames herself for her illness' impact on her family, but when her sisters begin treating her differently she knows her illness distances her from her normal siblings. When she realizes they are treating her politely, she explains, "Suddenly I understood the term visiting. I was in one place, they were in another, and they were only pausing" (Grealy 1995). Lucy's father feels uncomfortable when he visits the hospital and does so seldom.

Grealy's life at school is intolerable as well. Her cancer does not represent the most pa

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Category: Medical - L