Copyright © 2020 by Tom, Kari, and Emily Whitehead
Foreword copyright © 2020 by Ken Burns
Cover design by Laura Klynstra
Cover photography courtesy of the author
Cover copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020938836
ISBNs: 978-1-5460-3411-7 (hardcover), 978-1-5460-3412-4 (ebook)
E3-20200914-JV-NF-ORI
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Chapter 1: Only the Strongest Children Are Picked to Fight Cancer
Chapter 2: Our New Reality
Chapter 3: Please Pray for Emily
Chapter 4: Only Worry When They Go Quiet
Chapter 5: You’re in Charge of Hope
Chapter 6: Back Home
Chapter 7: I Love Lucy
Chapter 8: THON
Chapter 9: Relapse
Chapter 10: It’s Back
Chapter 11: How Can We Save Emily?
Chapter 12: Prayer Requests
Chapter 13: The Trojan Horse and the Chimera
Chapter 14: Say Goodbye to Emily
Chapter 15: We Believe
Chapter 16: Dr. Cowboy
Chapter 17: #WeBelieve
Chapter 18: Witnessing a Miracle
Chapter 19: Homecoming
Epilogue: What’s Happened Since Emily Came Home
Afterword by Emily
Photos
Acknowledgments
Discover More
About the Authors
Praise for Praying for Emily
My dad taught me to have faith.
My mom taught me the importance of science.
Together we created my miracle.
This is our story.
—Emily Whitehead
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FOREWORD
I meet a lot of everyday heroes in my work: the intrepid explorers who followed Meriwether Lewis and William Clark into the uncharted territories of the Pacific Northwest. The soldiers who lived through the traumatic blood, sweat, and tears of World War II and Vietnam. The athletes who persevered in the face of insidious assaults on their character—and their person—to integrate professional sports.
But none of them is any more heroic than Emily Whitehead, who endured a degree of pain that most of us can barely imagine to prove that a risky, experimental cancer treatment could save her life and the lives of thousands of other children.
She, too, is a pioneer. She, too, is a warrior. She, too, has persevered. As have her parents. As did the thousands of strangers who hoped and prayed for her, united by the simple hashtag #WeBelieve.
We know about the trials and tribulations of scientists and doctors who labor for decades to make revolutionary discoveries, but rarely do we hear about their patients, who are truly on the front lines.
At a time when it seems we can’t agree on anything in this culture, we can agree that Emily Whitehead is a hero.
When we first met her, Emily was a five-year-old who spent much of her life in hospitals, surrounded by technology, or at home, trying to live a normal life, as her body began to betray her.
We watched (and filmed) as she hovered near death while doctors feverishly tried to save her. We heaved our own sighs of relief when she went into remission after becoming the first child whose immune cells were successfully trained to fight cancer.
To be honest, we had feared her story would have a far different ending.
Today Emily is a healthy fifteen-year-old who gets straight As, loves art, and, as you are about to see, is able to write about her parents as wisely as they write about her.
Like many teenagers, Emily cares deeply about the challenges her generation faces, from the traumatic effects of bullying to global warming, and she travels the country telling her own story because she believes passionately in doing what she can to raise money for research that will treat other cancers, and save other children (although she also does admit it’s “kind of cool” to have your name on T-shirts).
While her parents say she likes being different, even “a little weird because it keeps things interesting,” it’s also clear (and I hope she doesn’t mind my saying it) that the most wonderful thing about her is, simply, that she’s a normal teenager—although as the father of one, I know that there is no such thing as a “normal” teenager!
We were fortunate and honored to have had the opportunity to chronicle Emily’s journey in our film Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies. I’m so glad her father, her mother, and Emily herself have now given us a chance to hear the rest of her story.
We have a lot to learn from her.
—Ken Burns
Chapter 1
ONLY THE STRONGEST CHILDREN ARE PICKED TO FIGHT CANCER
“OK.” That was all I could say to the doctor. I briefly glanced back at my mom who was with me in the ER. The doctor went right into the lab values, what was high, what was low, what the normal ranges were, which I didn’t hear a word of. I was just thinking, “How am I going to tell Emily? She’s only five. She’s not going to understand.”
—Kari’s journal
May 29, 2010
The Friday before Memorial Day, I was up in the bucket truck overlooking a farm field in Grassflat, Pennsylvania, with a crew of linemen replacing cross arms on power poles. We’d met up near dawn among the cornstalks, where we put on big rubber gloves, testing for stray voltage and grounding the lines, before we switched out the cross arms. Getting the job going
