You never know how far you can go until you’ve left everything behind. And as Eric Drew waited alone in the cold rain on a dock of the Seattle waterfront, he had come to the bitter edge.
Icy water lapped against the planks as he leaned on a cane, barely able to stand. Though only 36 years old, this former high school quarterback and magazine model now resembled a war victim. His once-dark, wavy hair was completely gone, his blue eyes were sunken. On his back he carried a small sack filled with plastic bags of antibiotics, antivirals, and antifungals. A hose ran from the bag straight through a catheter in his chest. If he caught even the slightest cold, he could be dead.
It was February 2004, and Drew was dying of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a savage cancer of the blood and bone marrow. In a healthy person bone marrow acts as a sort of factory of stem cells, the vital cells that mature and divide to form other essential blood cells throughout the body. The leukemia, however, was making Drew’s factory go haywire. Instead of producing healthy lymphocytes, white blood cells that fight infections, his bone marrow was unleashing abnormal lymphocytes into his bloodstream. Even worse, the bad cells were multiplying so rapidly that they were overtaking his healthy cells—making him harrowingly prone to deadly infections.
Chemotherapy and radiation had completely compromised his kidneys and destroyed his immune system, requiring a constant infusion of potassium, magnesium, vancomycin, Cipro, and other medications to help keep him alive. He had spent the past year in and out of hospitals from Stanford to Seattle. He had endured seizures and infections and got so bloated with fluids that his limbs blew up like some hideous cartoon. Most recently, he had undergone a bone marrow transplant that, he was told, was his final hope.
But his illness was not what brought him to the waterfront that night. As he lay in his hospital bed, Drew had been getting harassing phone calls from irate banks and credit card companies demanding payment for purchases he had never made. Taking him for dead, someone had stolen his identity, he discovered, and was racking up thousands of dollars in bills. Now, after getting a tip-off, he had come to the docks to meet an anonymous informant who claimed to have the skinny on the thief.
