A 20-year-old Amish woman with leukemia died in the state's largest measles outbreak in decades

Newly wed, and receiving treatment for blood cancer, she was the last of nine siblings sickened when measles swept through her unvaccinated family’s home on a one-lane road in Lancaster County.

At first, the home remedies that eased their symptoms seemed to help her, too: Soothing the fever with bath soaks. Calming the rash with coconut or olive oil. Cloistering in a dark room to ease light sensitivity.

Then her fever spiked. She struggled to breathe and had to sleep sitting up in a recliner in the living room, her maternal grandmother recalled.

Her family does not operate cars, in keeping with Amish beliefs, so they hired a driver to take her to the emergency department at Hershey Medical Center about an hour away. She died about two weeks later in the intensive care unit there, her grandmother said.