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“The wolf, I’m afraid, is inside tearing up the place.” Thus novelist Flannery O’Connor aptly described her battle with lupus—the Latin word for wolf—a chronic auto-immune disorder that affects nearly 1.5 million Americans. The body, in essence, attacks itself. Stephen King surely would have invented this condition, had nature not beaten him to the scary concept.
At $3.2 million, a national fundraising record for lupus research was set at the S.L.E. Lupus Foundation’s Life Without Lupus gala at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. Sportscaster Bob Costas introduced lupus activist and sufferer Carol Weisman and her husband, Emmy-award winning NBC sports producer Michael Weisman, who were honored for their indefatigable commitment towards finding a cure, as were Dr. Benjamin Schwartz and Aspreva Pharmaceuticals. The war on lupus is on, and its days, it is hoped, are numbered.
Today Show host Hoda Kotb emceed a reflective candlelight dinner, and Broadway’s Patti LuPone delivered a stellar half-hour performance despite flubbing her lyrics in a number of places—“I forgot the words,” she kept saying. Clearly, Ms. LuPone was exhibiting a classic symptom of the wrong disease.
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