My Sister Shanelle’s Fight against Brain Cancer

No words can truly resonate the impact, but this is how it unfolded. Shanelle's story begins on Friday May 19th, she was all set to have her last day at her job at Falls Church Animal Hospital and start her new job on Monday. However, she did not feel well and missed her last day of work at FCAH. Instead she went to the ER with a stiff neck and headache, after an exam they told her she was fine and to follow up with an ENT doctor and a neurologist. She stayed in bed all weekend, not able to move, eat or anything all while thinking she had a pinched nerve. When Monday came she was so sick she was not able to start her new job. She went back to the emergency room on Tuesday and this time they did a scan and informed her that she had a brain tumor. She was transferred to Georgetown Hospital for surgery on May 26th. They were able to take a good portion of her tumor out, however, they did not want to impact her cognitive and personality, so they left some of it to be treated with radiation and chemo.

In the midst of still processing this sudden change in her health, Shanelle was still trying to hit the ground running. The strong woman that Shanelle is, and feeling like she had no choice due to needing health insurance, she started her new job on June 12th. Due to not having insurance (this upsets me to no end) Shanelle was not able to schedule her radiation and chemo, until after her insurance kicked in. She was scheduled to start on July 14th, however, their radiation machine was down and they moved it to Monday the 17th. That Sunday, Shanelle started having seizures and was not responsive verbally. She went to the ER in Woodbridge and they did a scan/MRI, the tumor was back and had doubled in size, she was immediately transferred back to Georgetown Hospital for a 7 hour surgery on Monday. Half way through the surgery the surgeon warned us that Shanelle may not be the same as we know her. That night her brain did not stop bleeding from her surgery and she went back in surgery Tuesday for 3-4 hours to stop the bleeding.

As some of you may know, we lost our Mother to cancer in 2017 and that has made a huge impact on Shanelle as she was so close to her. Not having your Mom sucks in general, even more when you are going through something and you don’t have that motherly support anymore.

Shanelle is more than my baby sister to me, she is the closest thing to me having a child of own. In 1987 we moved from Maine to Maryland and she was born on December 20th, making it the best year of my life, for both reasons. After school I would pick her up from her babysitters and bring her home, feed, bath and put her to sleep. My mom worked retail hours and often had to work in the evenings. Shanelle was my little doll baby! I loved dressing her up, doing all kinds of hair styles with her beautiful curls. I would throw Shanelle her birthday parties or host a slumber party or two. I share this to say, she means so much to me!

After several weeks, Shanelle finally came home from the National Rehabilitation Hospital, however, she still needs round the clock care. Shanelle is a trooper and attends radiation daily, making the 45 minute trek to Georgetown 2x a day, 5 times a week. While still nonverbal she is making small steps with speech therapy once a week as well as making strides with physical therapy and can walk around the house unassisted and working daily on regaining movement in her right arm.

Shanelle has a 7-year-old special needs son, who just started the 2nd grade a couple of weeks ago. We are grateful that she is able to be at home with him and showing him her strength.

Please help my baby sister and her son, while she fights this extremely aggressive brain cancer. It takes a village, and we need all the help we can get!