was performing in the Broadway-bound play Brooklyn Boy at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California when she had to rush home to reach her husband's bedside after he went into cardiac arrest and a coma. In April 2005, it was also announced that she signed a seven-figure book deal with Penguin Books to write about her relationship with her famous husband. It is not known how far Reeve got with writing the book before she died; the book was never published. The children's book Dewey Doo-it Helps Owlie Fly Again: A Musical Storybook Inspired by Christopher Reeve was published in 2005 and included an audio to accompany the book with Mandy Patinkin reading the story as well as Reeve and Bernadette Peters singing. On February 2, 2005, eight days before the death of her mother Helen, Reeve attended President George W. Bush's State of the Union address seated in the Capitol gallery in Washington, D.C. as the guest of Congressman Jim Langevin (D-RI). Several months before her death, Reeve taped the PBS documentary The New Medicine focusing on the growing trend in medical care combining holistic and traditional treatment. The program premiered after her death, on March 29, 2006. She also worked on the computer-animated movie Everyone's Hero, a project with the working title Yankee Irving when her husband was the director at the time of his death. The film was released on September 15, 2006, and is dedicated to both her and Christopher Reeve. Illness and death In August 2005, ten months after the death of her husband, Reeve announced that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer. She had never smoked, but in her early career often sang in smoky bars and hotel lobbies. In 2005, Reeve received the "Mother of the Year Award" from the American Cancer Society for her dedication and determination in raising her son after the loss of her husband. In her final public appearances, Reeve stated that the tumor had responded to therapy and was shrinking. She appeared at Madison Square Garden on January 12, 2006, and sang the Carole King song "Now and Forever" in honor of New York Rangers hockey player Mark Messier, whose number was retired that evening. Reeve died on March 6, 2006, at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, 11 days before her 45th birthday. On the night that she died, instead of having