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My Sister's Keeper

2009

My Sister's Keeper

[Child loss] Kate Fitzgerald has acute promyelocytic leukemia. As neither her parents, firefighter Brian and lawyer Sara, nor older brother Jesse are a genetic match, Dr. Chance, Kate's oncologist, suggests designer in vitro fertilization. Anna is born as a savior sister. Anna had wanted to give Kate her kidney but Kate, not wanting to live any longer, had persuaded Anna to refuse. Sara is forced to acknowledge what Kate has been trying to tell her: she is ready to die. Kate dies in her sleep later that day with her mother by her side.

Beginning with the harvest of her umbilical cord at birth, over the next 11 years Anna donates compatible organs, blood, stem cells and tissue to Kate. Anna's life is one of hospitalizations, growth hormone injections, opioid painkillers, sleeping pills, bleeding, and infections. While Sara has no qualms over using Anna's body to treat Kate's, Brian is closer to Anna and has misgivings over their treatment of her.

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