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By the time August rolls around, most students are ready to get back into the academic routine. For IU McKinney 2L Sarah Kay, beginning the Fall 2019 semester is something she's been particularly looking forward to.

Kay wants to work as a deputy prosecuting attorney after law school. She worked as a 911 dispatcher for the Marion Police Department, where her experience working in this area of criminal justice cemented that idea. Kay grew up in Eatonton, Georgia, and completed her undergraduate studies at Georgia College. She met her husband, David, while they were both working at a resort hotel, and the couple moved to his home state, Indiana. After working at the police department, Kay decided it was time to go to law school.

During the summer after her 1L year, the trouble started out as a persistent headache. Kay thought she was experiencing migraines, which would be a not-unexpected complaint from a stressed-out law student who also is a mother of a 2-year-old. Kay didn't ignore the headache and went to her doctor, who did some tests.

It was July 2017. Kay had just taken the final exam for her professional responsibility course and was at work in the Tippecanoe County Prosecutor's Office when her doctor called, leaving a message to call back right away. Kay did, and was surprised when the physician came on the line. She had leukemia, and instead of waiting to meet with an oncologist to determine a treatment plan, Kay was ordered to go immediately to the emergency room at IU Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.

"My world just stopped," Kay said. She had no white blood cells. None. Kay and David arrived at the hospital where she began chemotherapy that night, after being transferred to the IU Cancer Center.

The following day, Kay learned precisely what kind of leukemia she had: acute myeloid leukemia, a rare and potentially fatal form of the disease. She had chemotherapy 24 hours a day for three weeks. Her mother, Susan Lines, moved to the Kay's home in Lafayette to care for the family while she was undergoing treatment. The family also got a lot of support from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Kay said.

Kay needed a bone marrow transplant. Testing on her brother, Josh Lines, found him to be only a 50 percent match, so her doctors turned to the registry, Be The Match. While searching for a donor, Kay continued to have chemotherapy, one week of 24-hour-a-day treatment each month. A donor was found in November 2017.

Kay had to have another round of chemotherapy to destroy everything in her immune system, then two days before her son, Preston's, birthday in December 2017, she had the transplant, which involved hanging an IV bag and letting the donated cells do their work.

"Four hours later and it was done," Kay said. "It was a little anticlimactic."

Far from being out of the woods, Kay had to be in the hospital for a month to ensure that her body wouldn't reject the transplant. She was released after New Year's Day, but her routine was severely restricted. No going to her son's daycare. No grocery shopping. No dining out.

Six month after the transplant, Kay was in and out of the hospital, experiencing what's known as host versus graft disease. In June 2018, doctors determined that Kay's body had rejected the transplant, and began to reconsider her brother as a potential donor; his cells would at least be familiar to Kay's cells. He agreed and traveled to Indianapolis later that month to begin the donation process. Donors must undergo testing to make sure they are healthy enough to donate, and the donation process alone takes six hours. Kay had another round of chemotherapy before getting the bone marrow transplant from her brother. It worked.

"We like to joke at Christmas," Kay said of her brother. "You don't have to get me anything for Christmas. I got your cells. You saved my life." Kay may have gotten her brother's cells, but she also got his curly hair. Kay had straight hair before the transplant.

Kay spent the next year recovering from all that her body had been through to fight the disease. Her doctors ruled out even online law classes, and working was out of the question. Kay had a bone marrow biopsy in July 2019 which showed that the transplant was a success. She returned to IU McKinney as a part-time day student in Fall 2019. Kay has to visit her doctors every six weeks to make sure the cancer hasn't returned.

Kay's classmates helped her through the ordeal, as did her friends from the Tippecanoe Prosecutor's Office, and the family's church.

"So many McKinney friends walked over from class to visit, bring food and gifts," Kay said of the time she spent at the IU Cancer Center on the IUPUI campus. "If you have to go through a crummy situation, it helps if you have a great village. I didn't realize I had as big of a village as I did until this happened."