MY BRILLIANT FRIEND NEEDS LIFESAVING HELP

https://gofund.me/67c1061e

Local girl does well, does good, and could use a hand herself right now

Opinion

By Melinda Henneberger, Kansas City Star

Tue, April 23, 2024 at 5:07 AM CDT

5 min read

As a kid at Queen of the Holy Rosary, when “Overland Park was not not not what it is today,” what Suzanne O’Malley remembers wanting most was to someday be able to repay her mom, dad, grandmas, aunts and uncles from Olpe and Scammon, Kansas, “for what they gave me.” She not only did that, but has had the kind of career that some writerly Midwestern girls might not even admit aspiring to.

She’s done well, writing for “Law & Order” and lecturing at Yale. And she’s done good: It was O’Malley’s discovery of false testimony during Andrea Yates’s capital murder trial for the drowning deaths of her five children that resulted in the reversal of Yates’s conviction. After the publication of O’Malley’s Edgar-nominated book, “Are You There Alone?” Yates was retried and sent to the Texas state mental hospital where she is still being treated. “I saved the life of a mentally ill woman with words,” she told me. “That’s what I’m proudest of, and that’s what my mom was proudest of.”

Her life in New York was pretty glittery: She wrote for all of the top magazines, and got to give her uncle who “wanted to be Hemingway” and had flown she thinks it was 36 bombing missions in World War II the thrill of being introduced around at Elaine’s.

But as you might have heard, the whole creative class is in trouble, making $200 a throw for pieces that still require a week’s work. And as you have probably not heard, even if you happen to be close to O’Malley, who moved to Austin a decade ago to care for her mother, she herself has been physically and financially leveled by a series of health problems.

Suzanne O’Malley made the pages of The New York Post’s Page Six gossip column. Courtesy of Suzanne O'Malley

Famous friends don’t make you immune

Famous friends don’t make you immune from those, of course, and neither does talent, hard work or the kind of priorities that made her leave the wow of a life she’d made for herself and move across the country to nurse her mom, who died in 2016.

by Barbara Lippert

https://gofund.me/67c1061e

Bravo! We've reached 60 percent of the goal. Suzanne O’Malley is a well-known journalist, a pro’s pro who wrote for Law & Order (yes, that's Sam Waterston) and saved Andrea Yates’ life with the reporting she did in Edgar Award-nominated book. She wants to get back on her feet medically/financially so she can finish her book about writer Nora Ephron. Her Austin doctors have recommended a THIRD small bowel resection surgery, a major surgery that failed twice before and has ulcerated causing internal bleeding. She's hoping for a new option at Weill Cornell hospital in NYC where an "advanced enteroscopic repair" might be possible without the damage of traditional surgery. We know she'll need plane fare, hotel (or a friend's invitation to house guest), medication, support to keep her home and her pup Leo. She lives on Social Security and a small WGA pension, spending almost a $1,000 a month on health insurance. But big ticket medication is $11,500 a month WITH insurance. Not a lot of empathy from Big Pharma.

In the last five years Suzanne has endured health challenges. She’s had five major surgeries--spinal fusion, two hip replacements and two intestinal obstruction surgeries. She has post-Covid pneumonia and is pursuing evidence of a genetic disorder that prevents digestion and absorption of iron. She is still hoping for a happy ending, but it's tough.

Suzanne has been brave. She researched our expose of the ‘Golden Bachelor’ from her hospital bed, on her phone, while recovering from her first hip surgery.

As you can imagine, it's not easy for her to ask for public help; we forced her to do this.

So, if you could find it in your heart to help a girl out, she'll get the care she needs, get back on her feet and continue to do the important work she does so well. She has no desire to retire.

She just needs not to have to choose between groceries and medication she gets from Canada, where it’s cheaper. Thank you so much for considering contributing! Every bit helps so much. Words of encouragement are appreciated. Thanks. Barbara