For as long as she needs it, Marcy Westerling has a home in Marin County. The 55-year old has been "adopted."
The Marin Independent Journal reports that Westerling, who has advanced ovarian cancer, stays in Mill Valley at the home of Sylvia and Bill Wallace whenever she visits the Bay Area to undergo cancer treatments.
Westerling used to live on an organic farm in Oregon before her diagnosis. She turned to Facebook and other media to ask for help and for hosts.
And Marin responded.
Another Mill Valley resident, Kathleen Duich, drives Westerling to some of her appointments. The Wallaces are also cancer survivors; Sylvia Wallace, 77, was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1981.
Westerling is on an "unproven cocktail" of anti-cancer drugs that no doctor in Oregon would approve, hence the need to come to California, the newspaper reported.
She is hoping that the current regimen will keep her alive long enough to begin a clinical trial of another drug at the University of Pennsylvania.
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But until then, love from former strangers in Marin is helping her along.
