AARP 2009 Inspire Award winners

Richard M. Cohen didn’t plan on becoming an advocate for the chronically ill. In fact, for most of his life, Cohen hid and sometimes lied about his own diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, even as he covered wars and national politics as a CBS news producer. He also married Meredith Vieira, now co-host of NBC’s Today show, with whom he has three children.

But in 2004, when he was giving a talk at his local library about his bestselling memoir, Blindsided: Lifting a Life Above Illness, Cohen overheard members of the audience talking about their own struggles with chronic illness and thought, “Someone ought to write a book telling other people’s stories.” So he did. Strong at the Broken Places: Voices of Illness, A Chorus of Hope came out in January 2008 and it was quickly followed by a pioneering radio program that addresses issues faced by the millions with an incurable disease.

“Everybody is touched by chronic illness,” Cohen says. “It’s the flood under the door.”

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