Faigie's Story

As a senior in high school, when climbing two flights of stairs became a difficult task, I thought I was unusually tired and weak, so I decided to see the doctor. After the return of a number of blood tests, I was sent to Long Island Jewish Hospital, where I received a diagnosis of ALL (acute lymphoblastic leukemia). My parents were with me at the time, though it was the doctor who did the talking, asking, "Do you know what leukemia is?" Overcome by shock and uncertainty, I didn't say anything, but the doctor kept repeating that it is a very treatable disease with a high success rate of cure and survival. I kept listening. To say I was petrified would be far from accurate. I was so blown away that I could not conceive the actual truth of what I was about to face. I had cancer.

The median age of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is between two and five years. Faigie was 17 years old at the time of her diagnosis in February 1995. Teenagers with ALL have lower survival rates than younger children, yet this was only one of the obstacles Faigie would have to face. Dr. Farid Boulad, a member of the Center's Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Service and the doctor responsible for Faigie's transplant, explains: "Age presents some problems. But the major problem for patients with ALL remains the high white blood cell count at the time of diagnosis. The average white count for leukemia patients is less than 50,000, and things become more risky when it rises over 100,000 -- Faigie's white count was one million."