Mallory Smith was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at the age of 3. She died at the age of 25, two months after receiving a double lung transplant.
Despite the torment of endless daily medical treatments, systemic hospital inefficiencies, and a deep understanding that she'd never lead a normal life, Mallory was determined to "live happy," a mantra she followed until her death.
She kept a journal from age 15-25 and asked her mother, Diane Shader Smith, to edit its 2,500-pages and publish it after her death. You can view the 1-minute book trailer, which introduces Mallory in her own voice, here.
On March 12, Random House will posthumously publish Mallory's memoir Salt in My Soul: An Unfinished Life.
What Mallory didn't know in the last days of her battle with CF was that she would be the inspiration and catalyst for reigniting phage therapy, one of the only promising and viable options for treating "superbugs.” She was treated with phage therapy but didn’t receive the dose until it was too late – by the time it arrived she was already brain dead.
The Navy will be announcing that the autopsy revealed that the phage treatment was, in fact, efficacious and would have saved her had she gotten it sooner.
Salt in My Soul is also an intimate portrait of a young woman living her life, trying to figure out who she is, and sorting out her hopes, dreams, fears, and future while confronting the reality of her disease.