While we continued hospital visits for blood transfusions, she led a normal life otherwise, growing a bit round and tubby and soon she passed the magic number of six. We looked at each other, Marvin and I, and said this is an important day. But we didn’t have any special celebration and we certainly didn’t tell anyone else about it. It was just when they turned six, we had passed this marvelous marker. We knew we had her and we knew we were going to keep her. But we would still need to keep giving her medicine, and she still did not know she had a disease that could kill her.
Sharon, Helen, and Steven
She passed the six mark and lived to be a richly fulfilled person of forty-six. Sharon's illness was diagnosed too late, but it alerted doctors to investigate Annie's condition. They caught her ovarian cancer earlier enough so that she survives now at 51 and never forgets that her twin's early finding kept the sword of Damocles from her head and allowed her to be the wonderful mother, wife, and daughter that she is.
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