Diagnostic Essay
Week 1
A Book that Everyone Should Read
“My Sister’s Keeper”
Is it possible to love one child over the other without showing favoritism? In “My Sister’s Keeper” by Jodi Picouit, Sara Fitzgerald has two daughters named Anna and Kate; she seems to favor Kate more than Anna. Kate was diagnosed with Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia, in order to keep her sister alive Anna under goes daily medical treatment. One day Anna decided to sue her parents for medical emancipation after her mom Sara told her she needed to give up one of her kidneys to save her sisters life. There were three people on Anna’s side, her father, Campbell Alexander her lawyer, and Julia Romano. Can the mom honestly say she loves her two girls equally without putting Kate first?
In 1990, Sara’s two year old daughter Kate was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. The shocking news that their child might die haunted Sara and her firefighter husband Brian, but Sara acted fast to get Kate treatment. Kate started chemotherapy , Dr. Chance her Oncologist said eventually she would need a bone marrow transplant, He suggested from a related donor. The Fitzgerald’s had a four-year-old son Jesse they had tested, but he was not a match. Dr. Chance mentions to the Fitzgerald’s that if they have another child that it could be a match. So Sara suggested to her husband Brian that they have another baby.
Anna is the daughter who was scientifically conceived to be a perfect genetic match for Kate. Anna underwent several procedures over the course of a few years, including bone marrow extractions and frequent blood with drawls, to keep her sister Kate alive. Sara describes the pain and suffering Kate was going through, Radiation and chemo made her seriously ill, and caused emergency trips to the hospital that signaled each new relapse. Brian and Sara struggle in their marriage as a result, to the point that they start to feel like strangers. Both Anna and Jesse start acting out in...