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My name is Jeff Flanagan and my daughter, Taylor, is now a 16 yr old Junior at Etowah High in Woodstock, GA. On October 28, 2010 she was diagnosed with AML, a very aggressive form of leukemia. Within 5 days she was started on extensive chemotherapy treatments. We were initially told she was going to have 5 total rounds of chemo, each lasting approximately 10 days and leaving her in the hospital for weeks with every treatment...but, she was the 1st in GA to only have to go through 4 rounds of her type of treatments. She was able to come home on Easter Day of 2011 and has been doing great since! My family and I thank everyone for all the prayers and thoughts over the last year! For more information on AML Leukemia, please see "AML Information" below.

Donation Page

All donations made will go to the Flanagan family to help cover any remaining out of pocket expenses for Taylor's medical bills. If you do not care to go through Paypal, you can also send donations made out to: Jeff & Ashley Flanagan P.O. Box 818 Holly Springs, GA 30142 Any and all donations are greatly appreciated, no amount is too small!

AML Information

"AML Information" - AML (acute myeloid leukemia) is diagnosed in about 20% of children with leukemia and approximately 500 children are diagnosed in the U.S. each year.

Leukemia is cancer of the blood. It develops in the bone marrow, the spongy center of the long bones that produces the three major blood cells: white blood cells fight infection, red blood cells that carry oxygen and platelets that help blood clot and stop bleeding. When a child has leukemia, the bone marrow begins to make white blood cells that do not mature correctly, but continue to reproduce themselves. Normal, healthy cells only reproduce when there is enough space for them to fit. With leukemia, these cells do not respond to the signals to stop and they reproduce, regardless of space available. These abnormal cells reproduce quickly and when they begin to crowd out other healthy cells in the marrow, symptoms of leukemia are experienced.

Symptoms of leukemia usually occur over a short period of days to weeks. Some of the signs and symptoms for AML can be tiredness or no energy, shortness of breath during physical activity, pale skin, swollen gums, slow healing of cuts, pinhead-size red spots under the skin, prolonged bleeding from minor cuts, mild fever, aches in bones, black-and-blue marks (bruises) with no clear issue.

Patients with AML need to start chemotherapy immediately. There are two (2) parts of treatment; induction therapy and consolidation therapy. The aim of induction therapy is to kill as many AML cells as possible and get good blood cell counts back to normal. When the aim of induction therapy is achieved, it is called a remission. Induction therapy is done at the hospital and most patients are there for three to four weeks. Combining drug types can strengthen the effects of the drugs and two or more chemo's are usually used together to treat AML. Most chemo's are given through a catheter placed into a vein, usually in the persons upper chest area. The first round of chemo usually does not get rid of all AML cells and most require more treatment. Usually the same drugs are used for additional rounds of chemo. Consolidation therapy is needed because some AML cells remain that are not found by common blood or marrow tests. Consolidation therapy is also done in the hospital and as with induction therapy, patients may be in the hospital for three to four weeks at a time.







Friday, November 12, 2010

October 28, 2010 - The Worst Day Ever

Most people wonder how leukemia is found and for us we had an angel on our side...Taylor's grandmother "Grammy".

My daughter, Taylor, had been sick for about 2 weeks, with what we all thought was just a cold. She is constantly getting strep throat and the flu, so there was not much alarm or surprise that she was sick. First she was taken to a clinic that said she had an upper respiratory infection, and that if she was not better within a couple of days she would need to be taken to her regular doctor. So, a couple of days later her Grammy took her to see her regular doctor and they said she had an ear infection and upper respiratory infection. Well, Grammy decided to be persistant and made the doctor do blood work on her. When the results came back the doctor had said she was anemic and wanted her to go to a lab to see what form of anemia she had. At this point Taylor was not to thrilled with Grammy for making her get poked and prodded for blood work...but she has since been forgiven and then some! The lab drew their blood and said they would be contacting myself or her mom by 5 p.m. that afternoon with the results. Taylor's regular doctor called her mom, Michelle, and gave the devastating news...it was leukemia...and they wanted her to be rushed to Scottish Rite in Atlanta for further testing. Michelle called me and gave me the news, I was completely crushed and at a loss of words just trying to wrap my head around everything...considering this was also my birthday, this was no way I wanted to celebrate it.

Taylor was taken to Scottish Rite but was only told she was to have further testing done. Nobody wanted to tell her the news until we were 100% sure as to what was going on, so as not to alarm her and have her asking 100 questions we wouldn't be able to answer for her. About 10:30 p.m. the doctors came in to confirm that it was in fact leukemia and naturally, Taylor broke down and lost it. It is amazing how resiliant kids are though, because by 1 a.m. she was asking questions and wanting to know if she could visit the other kids the next day.

We were originally told she could have one of two types of leukemia...ALL which is an acute form that would require monthly treatments that spanned over 2 1/2 -3 yrs or AML, the more aggressive form that meant chemo would need to be started immediately and would be week long monthly treatments that would need to be done for 5-7 months. The results on which type she had would not be in until the next morning, and the saying "the waiting is the worst part" is an understatement.
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