What type of leukemia does kate have

It is against the law in the state of California to harvest a solid organ from a minor. A kidney transplant would be considered in a patient with leukemia only if she or he had been successfully treated and there was no evidence of recurrence, Ratner says.

It is also likely that one of the parents would be a compatible kidney donor because HLA-identical donors such as Anna are not strictly necessary for organ transplants the way they are for bone marrow. The advantage of an identical organ donor, however, is that this takes away the need for treatment with immunosuppressive drugs. All Sections. About Us. B2B Publishing. Webster had decided to put the word freak in his dictionary, Anna Fitzgerald would be the best definition he could give.

No, God was obviously in some kind of mood on my birthday, because he added to this fabulous physical combination the bigger picture; the household into which I was born. The truth is, I was never really a kid. To be honest, neither were Kate and Jesse. Well, I never once believed that. How could I, when we practically set a place for Death at the dinner table? Kate has acute promyelocytic leukemia.

As I am coming up the stairs, my mother comes out of her room wearing another ball gown. I zip it up and watch her twirl. The gown is all the colors of a sunset, and made out of material that swishes when she moves. My mother twists her hair into a knot and holds it in place. On her bed are three other dresses — one slinky and black, one bugle— beaded, one that looks impossibly small.

She holds up a hand, shushing me, her ear cocked to the open doorway. She marches down the hall and opens up our bedroom door to find my sister hysterical on her bed, and just like that the world collapses again. My father, a closet astronomer, has tried to explain black holes to me, how they are so heavy they absorb everything, even light, right into their center.

Kate hugs a pillow to her stomach, and tears keep streaming down her face. I stand frozen in the doorway of my own room, waiting for instructions: Call Daddy. Call Call Dr. My mother goes so far as to shake a better explanation out of Kate, grabbing her shoulders, but Kate only wipes her face and tries to speak.

On the screen, a blond hottie gives a longing look to a woman crying almost as hard as my sister, and then he slams the door. Do you? At different times this summer she has been crazy for Callahan, Wyatt, and Liam, the male leads on this soap. I actually followed that story line; Kate made me tape the show during her dialysis sessions. For two months, anyway. After my mother leaves, Kate sinks a little.

As she gets sicker, she fades a little, until I am afraid one day I will wake up and not be able to see her at all. I fluff my pillows up under my head. I hold out my hand too. My father says that a fire will burn itself out, unless you open a window and give it fuel. So when Kate falls asleep from her meds I take the leather binder I keep between my mattress and box spring and go into the bathroom for privacy. I count the money a second time, just in case the bills have miraculously reproduced, but math is math and the total stays the same.

And then I read the newspaper clippings. Campbell Alexander. It sounds like a bar drink that costs too much, or a brokerage firm. Blocking the stairs to his place are four snow tires, a small wall of cartons, and an oak desk tipped onto its side. Sometimes I think Jesse sets up these obstacles himself, just to make getting to him more of a challenge.

It takes nearly five whole minutes before he hears me knocking. He thinks twice, then steps back to let me enter. The room is a sea of dirty clothes and magazines and leftover Chinese take— out cartons; it smells like the sweaty tongue of a hockey skate.

Jesse ignores me, going back to whatever he was doing on the far side of the mess. A nasty grin itches over his face. For a still made out of spit and glue, it produces pretty potent whiskey. An inferno races so fast through my belly and legs I fall back onto the couch. I lose my voice again, for nearly a whole minute. Jesse laughs and takes a swig, too, although for him it goes down easier.

Sort of. I can still taste the fire. You owe me. He scans them, then looks me right in the eye. His are the palest shade of silver, so surprising that sometimes when he stares at you, you can completely forget what you were planning to say. Kate plays the martyr. He thinks he knows me, but it goes both ways — and when it comes to friction, Jesse is an addict.

I look right at him. Jesse agrees to wait for me in the parking lot. I walk around to the front of the building, which has two gargoyles guarding its entrance. The secretary is wearing black pumps so shiny I can see my own face in them.

I glance down at my cutoffs and the Keds that I tattooed last week with Magic Markers when I was bored. He asks her to a hospital dance for all the sick kids, and she gets to pretend to be a "normal" girl going to the prom for once. It's pretty sad, if not unexpected, that he would die. What is unexpected or not, depending on how you feel about her is that Kate's mother, Sara, keeps it from Kate, making Kate think that nice Taylor is just a jerk who is standing her up after the prom instead of, you know, not calling because he's six feet underground.

This shows us how Sara sometimes goes too far to protect Kate, and just ends up hurting her more. Perhaps the most shocking thing about My Sister's Keeper is that Kate ends up living and Anna, the donor, dies. Not during organ donation, either, but in a freak car accident. After this, Kate receives Anna's kidney and ends up living.

Kate kind of feels guilty about this. If you're a believer in fate, it might seem like Kate altered it—it was her idea for Anna to sue, because Kate wanted to die. The strained relationship between Anna and her mother seeps into struggles Kate faces in being able to tell her mother she wants to die. The novel delves into the ethical issues of the right to life and suicide.

In , it was adapted into a motion picture starring Cameron Diaz and Abigail Breslin. The novel has been challenged and banned repeatedly, accused of having inappropriate displays of drug, violence, suicide, offensive language, sexually explicit behaviors, and homosexuality. In , the novel was challenged in Clawson, Michigan, for being too racy for middle school students.