Cassidy's journey: Polo High junior cancer-free, but not strong enough to go back to school
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| Cassidy Terry, 17, and her mother, Tena Terry of Polo, look over a calendar Tena uses to mark the events in the recovery of her daughter, who is cancer-free after a July bone marrow transplant to combat leukemia. (VINDE WELLS/vwells@shawnews.com) |
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POLO – Five months after a bone marrow transplant from a stranger 8,000 miles away saved her life, a Polo High School junior is cancer-free and attending school in cyberspace.
Cassidy Terry, 17, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in March. She spent the next few months undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, to prepare her body for a marrow transplant.
Members of her family – mom Tena, dad Drew, brothers Ethan, 26, and Keegan, 21, and sister, Kate, 25 – were tested, but none was a match.
Finally, a match was found – a 23-year-old woman in Germany.
The transplant was done July 24, and Cassidy since has been recovering, first in the hospital, then at home for the past several months.
A bone marrow biopsy Nov. 1 – 100 days after the transplant – showed no signs of cancer.
“We waited and waited for those results,” her mother said. “That was a huge milestone.”
Cassidy can’t go back to school yet – her immune system isn’t ready – but she’s keeping up with her studies with the help of tutors and technology.
“The school set up the computer so that she can hear what’s going on in class and participate,” Tena said. “She logs in in the morning and is ‘in class’ for trigonometry and biology II.”
Tutors come 4 days a week, 2 hours a day.
“I’m on track and taking finals like everyone else,” Cassidy said. “But I think it will feel more normal when I go back to school.”
Tena, a registered nurse, said Cassidy’s doctors hope she can go back to school in February.
Right now, though, she must avoid crowds and situations where germs might be easily spread. Full recovery takes about a year, Tena said.
The experience has affected the entire family.
“It changes your whole life,” Tena said. “You wake up in the morning and have to be grateful. And not grumble so much about things that don’t matter.”
Her ordeal began in March, when Cassidy couldn’t seem to shake a fever and fatigue.
“I was tired all the time,” she said.
First her doctor thought she might have strep throat, then mononucleosis. Blood work done to test for mono found the leukemia.
The next day, Cassidy had her first dose of chemo at Children’s Memorial.
It was a hard diagnosis to accept. “I was in denial for a while,” she said. “I was scared. I tried to keep it as normal as possible.”
“She never put her cell phone down,” Tena said with a chuckle.
The “lowest point,” she said, came when the radiation treatments made Cassidy ill and weak. She needed the treatments, though, to suppress her immune system so her body would not reject the transplant.
For her part, the worst of it “was the transplant and being away from everyone. I hated being at the hospital,” Cassidy said.
Her aunt bought her a laptop so she could stay in touch via Facebook and e-mail, and friends drove up to visit, made her cards and posters and sent pictures.
The Terrys have no idea yet what the transplant and treatment will cost – bills still are coming in.
Cassidy hopes to someday meet her donor to say thank you.
They can contact the woman, but not until a year after transplant, Tena said.
“I don’t think donors realize what they do – she saved Cassidy’s life,” she said.
Through it all, the support from family, friends and the community kept them going, Tena said. She noted all the fundraisers to help the Terrys pay expenses, such as lodging, food and gasoline, not covered by medical insurance.
“[Polo United Methodist] church brought food – we didn’t cook for months,” she said.
“This community was unbelievable. We’re just overwhelmed by all they did.”
About the procedure
Although the treatment for acute myeloid leukemia is referred to as a bone marrow transplant, it’s really a stem cell transplant.
Once a match is found, a donor takes medication for 5 days prior to the procedure to make the body produce more stem cells than normal.
During the procedure, blood is drawn from one arm of the donor, run through a device that spins out the stem cells, then returned to the donor’s other arm.
Cassidy Terry’s donor, a German woman, had her stem cells removed there, then they were flown to Chicago for the transplant.
Learn more at www.marrow.org online.
