Doug Reilly is one of us - a geek who revels in his geekness. He has been involved in programming communities for a long time and is known on many listservs and newsgroups. Doug has authored numerous programming books as you can see by this Amazon search for his books. Many of them were on ASP, but of course, like a good geek, he loved lots of programming topics. Doug has been battling a nasty cancer for many years. Even though he was always the most cheerful guy when you would see him at conferences (seriously one of those joy-spreading kind of people), it was hard to miss how thin he was getting. But that didn't stop him. He was someone that Lance Armstrong's LIVESTRONG foundation is all about and was cycling to raise funds for this organization (you can still contribute!!). It didn't seem like anything was going to keep him down.
In early December, just before the ASPInsiders meeting, Doug told us that he wasn't going to be able to attend the event, that he was too ill to travel. It really took some serious words on his part for us to realize (and accept) that he was not going to be able to defy what this cancer was doing to his body much longer. Within another week, he was home from the hospital with hospice care, paralyzed from the waist down and still, I saw his emails answering questions on some of the ASPAdvice listserves!
Very sadly, he went downhill quickly after that. His wife, Jean (with him in the picture), took up his blog to let everyone know how things were going. She has blown everyone away in how she embraced Doug's illness, his fight and his care. Reading some of the comments left in the Guest Book on his blog, although they are all touching, the one that really sticks in my head is one from his family thanking Jean for taking such good and loving care of their family member.
Doug passed away yesterday morning. He was at home and at peace.
Of the many legacies Doug has left, in the past year, he became very outspoken about his illness as he wrestled with how to do what was best for his clients. His thoughts on the matter were widely recognized within and outside of the programming community.
Here are some links:
Doug's Weblogs.ASP.NET blog
Doug's blog which Jean has been posting to
A story about Doug and his advice to consultants with serious illnesses on CNET (where I got one of the pictures)
Coming out as a Cancer Survivor... (this article has nearly 1400 comments and has been viewed almost 20,000 times!) (where I got the other picture)
Doug's obit :-(