Suleika experiences a relentless itch and extreme exhaustion during her senior year at Princeton, unable to explain the symptoms.

Suleika meets Will while sharing a taxi home from a party, and he stays with her for three days before she leaves the country.

Suleika moves to Paris to work as a paralegal, hoping the city will rescue her from her stagnating life.

After weeks of letters and emails, Will moves to Paris to live with Suleika in her small apartment.

A Paris nurse tells Suleika her red blood cell count is critically low and she must return to the US immediately.

Doctors deliver Suleika's diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia after a bone marrow biopsy in Saratoga Springs.

Will flies to Saratoga Springs after hearing Suleika's diagnosis, meeting her parents for the first time.

Suleika checks into Mount Sinai Hospital and receives her first round of chemotherapy.

Doctors move Suleika into an isolation room she names the Bubble as her chemotherapy side effects intensify and her hair falls out.

Suleika's brother Adam is confirmed as a perfect bone marrow donor match for her transplant.

Suleika receives Adam's bone marrow cells in a transplant procedure at Sloan Kettering Hospital.

The Day 100 appointment reveals no cancerous cells in Suleika's marrow, but she learns she needs months more of maintenance chemotherapy.

Will moves out of their apartment the day Suleika returns home from her fourth post-treatment hospitalization.

Suleika sets out on a 100-day road trip across America to visit readers who wrote to her during her illness.

After completing her road trip, Suleika concludes she would not take back her suffering given all she gained from it.

Suleika Jaouad's memoir begins with unexplained symptoms during her final year at Princeton, leading her through a paralegal job in Paris and a chance romantic connection with Will before her health forces her home. A bone marrow biopsy reveals acute myeloid leukemia, and Suleika enters the brutal world of chemotherapy, isolation, and clinical trials at Mount Sinai Hospital. Her only hope for a cure is a bone marrow transplant, which her brother Adam provides at Sloan Kettering after being confirmed as a perfect match. Post-transplant life proves just as difficult as treatment, as the illness strains her relationship with Will to its breaking point and he eventually moves out. Newly cancer-free but emotionally adrift, Suleika plans a 100-day road trip across America to visit strangers who wrote to her during her illness. The journey teaches her that she would not trade her suffering for the connections and growth it brought her.

The central journey from mysterious illness to cancer survival and hard-won self-acceptance.

Suleika's parents give her a red suitcase as a graduation gift, a symbol of their bohemian, nomadic legacy.

Will and Suleika travel to Amsterdam for his birthday, where she feels fragile and made of eggshells for the first time.

Suleika collapses on the Paris metro while lost on her way to a doctor's appointment, feeling utterly alone.

Suleika is hospitalized in Paris for a week and diagnosed with burnout syndrome, receiving a month's medical leave from work.

Suleika interviews for a journalism position covering the Arab Spring in Tunisia, the foreign correspondent role she has always dreamed of.

Suleika and her mother visit a fraudulent Cancer Guru who claims chemotherapy will kill her and attempts to draw her blood with unwashed hands.

Suleika decides to freeze her eggs before beginning chemotherapy to preserve the possibility of having children.

Suleika, Will, and fellow patient Dennis watch the Fourth of July fireworks from the hospital window, laughing at the absurdity.

Suleika nearly dies from a severe infection, and Dr. Holland tells her family the outcome could go either way.

Suleika wakes from her near-fatal infection and spontaneously proposes marriage to Will, who agrees immediately.

Suleika, Will, Anne, and Hédi each commit to individual 100-day creative projects to fight depression and isolation.

Suleika launches her New York Times column called Life, Interrupted, connecting her with readers across the world.

Adam's bone marrow cells begin engrafting and Suleika and Will move into the Hope Lodge cancer home in Manhattan.

Suleika adopts a schnoodle puppy named Oscar after moving into the East Village apartment with Will.

Suleika travels to India to spread Melissa's ashes and smuggles them into the Taj Mahal on her friend's behalf.

Before her diagnosis, Suleika's life is marked by family gifts of adventure, a first frightening collapse of her body, a hospitalization written off as burnout, and the journalism career she is forced to abandon. Once diagnosed, she navigates the complicated terrain of informed decisions — freezing her eggs, surviving a brush with death from infection, and watching hospital friendships form and disappear. The 100-day creative projects, her New York Times column, and eventually her adopted dog Oscar all become lifelines against isolation and despair. After the transplant, her recovery unfolds through small but significant milestones as she rebuilds an independent life with Will in Manhattan. The death of her friend Melissa eventually leads Suleika to India, where she begins the emotional reckoning that will drive her toward her cross-country trip. These secondary events form the fabric of daily survival that the main plot's headline moments rest upon.

The supporting moments that shaped Suleika's treatment, relationships, and path toward healing.

Suleika journals the words Stay afloat while struggling to recognize herself and her behavior during her New York City internship.

Suleika overhears her father speculate from the staircase that her symptoms might be HIV, making her furious at his assumptions.

Suleika calls Will to share her leukemia diagnosis over the phone, and he tells her he is catching the first flight to be with her.

Suleika's blast numbers more than double during treatment, prompting her to consent to joining an experimental clinical trial drug.

Suleika returns to the oncology ward and learns from nurse Younique that both Dennis and Yehya have died, thinking she is next.

A hospital social worker warns that marrying Will could jeopardize Suleika's bone marrow transplant, forcing the couple to postpone their wedding indefinitely.

Suleika's blog post about her cancer diagnosis is picked up by the Huffington Post, bringing an outpouring of letters from strangers.

On the morning of the bone marrow transplant, Adam greets Suleika with his nickname for her, Salut, Suleikemia.

Suleika and Will have a fierce argument in which she throws a glass globe at him and declares this is my hell.

Melissa learns her cancer has spread to her lungs and defiantly travels to India, texting Suleika she has never felt more alive.

Suleika has her medical port surgically removed with Jon at her side, marking her official departure from active cancer treatment.

Suleika takes driving lessons from a Vermont neighbor, finally learning a skill she missed during her years of illness.

Suleika visits Melissa's mother Cecelia in New Hampshire and cries about Melissa's death for the first time since the funeral.

Suleika visits Katherine in California, reads her late son Brooke's farewell letter, then contacts Jon and Max to face her fears.

Suleika visits Max in Los Angeles, and he asks her directly whether his dying makes her uncomfortable.

Suleika's story is shaped as much by internal revelations as by external events, beginning with early glimpses of her self-alienation and her parents' frightening speculation about her health. The leukemia diagnosis reshapes every relationship around her, from Will's immediate declaration of loyalty over the phone to the hospital social worker's warning that marriage could cost Suleika her transplant. During treatment, hard truths accumulate — the deaths of hospital friends, a near-fatal infection, and a furious fight with Will that exposes the damage illness has done to their bond. Breakthroughs in creativity and connection arrive through her blog, the morning of the transplant, and her friend Melissa's fearless response to a terminal prognosis. In remission, Suleika confronts her avoidance of grief through encounters with Melissa's mother, a dying friend in California, and a woman named Katherine whose son's farewell letter teaches her that grief cannot be carried alone. These turning points chart the emotional architecture beneath Suleika's outward journey.

The pivotal decisions, discoveries, and emotional breakthroughs that define Suleika's transformation.