Journey to the Finish Line

On April 19, 1999, Virginia Garner swallowed capsules of an experimental drug now known as Gleevec and became one of the first few people to take an effective dose of this miracle drug that would change not only the history of chronic myelogenous leukemia, but the history of cancer as a whole. Even as Virginia was swallowing her first pills, melanoma was surging through the body of her husband Van. On October 1, 2001, it announced itself in the form of a tumor on his head. Like Virginia’s diagno