How It All Goes Down
Sara, 1997
- It's time for yet another hospital visit, but this time it's Anna, who went over the handlebars of her bike.
- Meanwhile, Kate goes through a clinical relapse and is bleeding all over the place. Man, her cancer sure is a drama queen, huh?
- This is when they decide to prepare Anna for the bone marrow transplant.
- It seems pretty painful, and to make things worse, Sara doesn't want to leave Kate's bedside, even though Anna's in the hospital, too. Thanks, Mom.
- She finally does, and then she does what all good mothers do: dose their daughters on extra-strength prescription pain meds.
- Thankfully, the marrow transplant sticks, and Kate's white cell count rises.
- During all this, however, they have to fight with the insurance company to get the operation paid for.
- Sara's sister offers to pay for the operation, but Brian refuses, saying that the firefighters had a fundraiser and raised enough money.
- He was partially lying, it turns out. They raised a good chunk of it, and he used Kate's college fund to cover the rest. He says, bluntly, "She's not going to live long enough to use that money for college" (5.3.155). Plus, what they had saved would barely cover a semester anyway.
- As Kate gets stronger, Sara wants to take her to the mall.
- Kate doesn't want to go, though, because she's bald and it's been a cool minute since Sinead O'Connor was relevant.
- As a show of solidarity, Sara and Anna shave their heads, then they all go to the mall together.