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Keystrokes will keep her connected

A St. Petersburg High School student's friends chip in for a laptop to help her stay in touch while she's treated for leukemia.

By RITA FARLOW
Published January 11, 2006

Rachel Manzo, 15, and her friends planned to have a holiday party and exchange Secret Santa gifts this December. But when the group from the International Baccalaureate program at St. Petersburg High School heard that their classmate Emily Lester was back in the hospital, they decided to forgo the presents and buy a laptop computer so their friend could stay in touch and try to keep up with her schoolwork.

"Everybody knew her, but not her situation. When we heard (she was back in the hospital), we thought it would be a nice way to think of her at the holidays," said classmate Taylor Volosin, 16.

Emily, 16 and a sophomore in the IB program, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in October 2001, three days after her 12th birthday. After nearly three years of chemotherapy, Emily completed her treatment protocol in August 2004. Though she was able to celebrate her 16th birthday in remission, Emily relapsed in November and is at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg undergoing more chemotherapy. In a few weeks, Emily may travel to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis for a bone marrow transplant.

"Her sisters are perfect matches (for a transplant), which they said is a miracle because there's only a 25 percent chance that one sibling would match. So to have them both match is our Christmas miracle," said Emily's mom, Tricia Lester.

Transplant patients typically require 100 days of hospitalization, so the new laptop will help keep Emily connected to her friends back home, Tricia Lester said.

"What we've been told is that the hardest thing for the teens is the isolation, so their gift was very thoughtful. We immensely appreciate what they did. She has it here (at the hospital). When she's up to it, she'll go on, and she's been putting programs on it," Tricia Lester said. Emily Lester said she has already used the laptop and is "really happy and really surprised" by her classmates' generosity.

Tricia Lester said St. Petersburg High School is trying to create a curriculum that Emily can follow during treatment. Emily hopes she'll be able to remain in the IB program, Tricia Lester said.

"She loves school. Her first words were, "I don't want a GED, I want an IB diploma,' " Tricia Lester said.

"She's really a dedicated student and has had a hard time keeping up with her work and her tests (because of her illness), so this will help her stay up to date," said Rachel Manzo, who helped pick out the Sony laptop. Rachel's stepfather, Ray Easterlin, matched $800 in donations the kids collected.

Rachel said they picked out a laptop at Best Buy with "lots of hard drive space" and a "Web cam" so Emily could send e-mails and pictures to friends and family back home. Rachel, who met Emily at the initiation banquet for the Rojans, a girls' service club at the school, said several dozen students contributed to the laptop. The gift was given to Emily on behalf of the entire sophomore IB class, to let her know she'll be missed as she undergoes treatment, Rachel said.

"We hope this really showed her we were all thinking about her and she's still remembered," she said.

To read Emily's journal or leave a message on her guestbook, visit her Web site at http://caringbridge.org/fl/emilylester/index.htm

[Last modified January 11, 2006, 00:41:19]