Amanda was diagnosed with AML in Sept 2020. She was treated with chemotherapy in the fall and received a Bone Marrow Transplant on December 31st. She was just discharged end of Feb from the hospital and will going outpatient with the BMT team for the first year, then back with the Leukemia team ongoing. Her younger sister Lydia was able to be her donor, with only a 25% chance of being the match. Both girls are amazing and would welcome the opportunity to document their journey.
Amanda was not having any symptoms and was just going to a routine physical at the end of August 2020 in order to get her school forms completed to play basketball. At this routine checkup, the doctor was checking for iron levels with teens having menstrual cycles and her levels came back very low. These results trigger more blood work which then took us to the oncologists. The doctor’s exams showed no signs of Leukemia physically on her body, however further tests and a bone marrow biopsy did confirm AML.
She was admitted immediately for a dual-port to be embedded in her chest and started chemotherapy shortly after. A very surprising catch and quick transition into cancer care. Unfortunately, her type of AML has an abnormality which only a bone marrow transplant would give her the best chance to beat this cancer. Her AML with 5Q depletion is a notorious relapse cancer and just very blessed doing so well at the moment.
She is not able to go to any public places at the moment due to her immune system being so compromised from the BMT. As you can imagine a challenge for a teenage girl to lose all her hair but she has a good attitude and love the pic with the boxing gloves and outdoor nature shots.
She would be impatient for weeks with chemotherapy and with the BMT was in for over 10 weeks (admitted Dec 22nd so spent the holidays in the hospital) If not impatient we got to outpatient appts at the clinic several days a week. The cancer has not only stopped all school activities and even schooling during BMT, but it has also consumed our way of living between appts and at-home regimens and medications. She is not even allowed to touch her pets due to the risk of fungal infections.
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