Roses To Science

How do books have to do with science? How do roses have to do with science? Roses are a part of mother nature, which is a huge part of science. However, that's not the kind of roses I am talking about. Recently. I read a book titled A Rose For Melinda by Lurlene McDaniel. This book is about a girl, Melinda, who has a long distance friendshp with a boy named Jesse Rose. He is the kind of rose that we are talking about right now! In this book, Melinda is diagnosed with lukemia, and eventually ends up passing away. Though this seems like a love story of sorts, it relates to science because it talks about the symptoms she has due to her lukemia and mentions some of the treatments that she has to go through. One of the symptoms of lukemia is being harmed, such as cut or bruised, very easily. In the book, Melinda has bruises on her leg. A cure for lukemia is chemotherapy. Melinda has to go through this, however, it does not work. Since this did not work for Melinda, they tried a bone marrow transplant. The transplant works best if the donor is a sibling, but parents are okay too. In the book, they even mentioned that unrelated donors have saved lives. Altough I won't go into detail, the book helped understand what the transplant included and the risks involved. The author also wrtoe about some of the precations and procedure, like destroying an immune system before the transplant can take place. As you can see, this book directly relates to science and also teaches you a lot about lukemia and also about friendship and love. What to know more? Go to your local library and check out the book! What else will you learn about lukemia?