Lucy Grealy

The author of the story. At age nine, Lucy is diagnosed with cancer, though it's years before she associates her illness with cancer. The name of the disease is Ewings sarcoma and the result is that she's forced to undergo surgery to remove a section of her jaw bone. She then spends two years having daily radiation treatments and chemotherapy every Friday. Through the radiation and chemo and subsequent surgeries, Lucy waits for the facial reconstruction to be completed and to have the life - and the face - she's supposed to have.

As a child facing these major treatments, Lucy learns some important things about herself and her family. The first is that she's "in this" - meaning the situation - alone. She says that even though her mother is worried and feels helpless to do anything to change the danger Lucy faces, her mother can't...