Natural Killer

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With a new introduction by Ashley Audrain, author of The Push and The Whispers"I need people to know that I exist, that their experiment worked, that by some combination of luck an d science, I'm alive."In this harrowing and intimate memoir, Harriet Alida Lye explores how, at just fifteen years old, she was diagnosed with a variant of leukemia called Natural Killer, named "the rarest and worst malignancy." The average survival time of patients with this diagnosis is fifty-eight days. There were no known survivors.Told through a seamless blend of narrative, medical notes, and journal entries, Natural Killer explores what it’s like to live with a life-threatening illness and survive it, and how the memory of a body turning against itself resurfaces at moments of profound vulnerability, especially in becoming a mother. After having spent nine months living at Toronto’s SickKids Hospital as a teenager, Harriet spent most of her pregnancy reckoning with how to trust a body that had once committed the ultimate betrayal. With probing lyricism and searing honesty, Harriet Alida Lye examines what it means not just to survive the impossible, but to build a life in its aftermath. Show more