(dailyRx)
Screenwriter and filmmaker, Nora Ephron, has died after battling leukemia. She was 71.
Ephron died of pneumonia, as a result her acute myeloid leukemia, according to her son, Jacob Bernstein.
The author, screenwriter and director may be most famous for her lovable romantic comedies — “When Harry Met Sally” and “Sleepless in Seattle” — both of which earned her Oscar nominations for Best Screenplay.
Starting as a reporter for the New York Post, she got into films when she rewrote the script for “All the President’s Men.” At the time, she was married to Carl Bernstein, one of the Washington Post reporters who worked on the story that toppled the presidency of Richard Nixon.
Other favorite films are “Silkwood,” also nominated for an Oscar and “You’ve Got Mail.”
In addition to screenplays, Ephron was a prolific writer. Her books have included Heartburn and Crazy Salad.
Leukemia is diagnosed in 47,000 Americans each year and takes 23,500 lives, according to the American Cancer Society.
There are four major types of leukemia – acute lymphocytic, chronic lymphocytic, acute myeloid and chronic myeloid.
That Ephron was gravely ill was only made public on the day of her death.
Columnist Liz Smith said of her friend’s death, “[Nora] seemed never to want or expect anything, while always demanding the best from the rest of us. She was—always—right and somehow left the smartest, most ambitious and silliest of us in the dust at her feet.”
According to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, there are over 245,000 people in the United States living with some form of leukemia, and over 44,000 new cases will be diagnosed each year. Among children with cancer, one out of every three will have some form of leukemia. However, over 90% of all cases of leukemia occur in adults.
Leukemia broadly defines a number of different cancers that originate in the bone marrow and blood cell lines, and typically produces an abnormal increase in the number of white blood cells in the body. Leukemias are subdivided into whether they are acute (occur rapidly) or chronic (develop over many years) and then further subdivided into what type of blood cell they start from, lymphocytic (usually from white blood cells that fight infection, like B-cells) or myelogenous (arising from cells in the bone marrow that eventually produce red blood cells). These categories make up the four most common types of leukemia:
- Acute Lymphoblastic (ALL): Affects adults over age 65 (50% survival); also the most common form of leukemia in children (85% survival)
- Chronic Lymphocytic (CLL): Affects mostly men over age 55 (75% survival)
- Acute Myelogenous (AML): Affects mostly adult men (40% survival)
- Chronic Myelogenous (CML): Affects mainly adults (90% survival)