Meet Seeley: Spunky, Three and Cancer Free
What would you do if your newborn was diagnosed with leukemia? Read on to learn how Seeley’s family traveled thousands of miles to save their “little miracle.”
Seeley appeared perfectly healthy when she was born on Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i in 2021. Two weeks later, she developed a persistent fever which prompted her parents to take her to a local hospital.
“For peace of mind, my husband asked them to do a blood test,” says Seeley’s mom, Hayley. Seeley’s white blood cell count came back extremely high. “Shortly after that, we saw the team running to our room.”
Seeley was flown to O‘ahu that night for emergency care at a larger hospital.
A SHOCKING DIAGNOSIS
On O‘ahu, Seeley was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a life-threatening blood cancer. “It’s not something you can imagine, your 2-week-old baby getting a diagnosis like that,” says Shawn, Seeley’s dad. “It was a physical shock.”
Seeley’s oncologist urged her parents to start their daughter’s chemotherapy
treatment right away, despite her young age and small size. “He said Seeley would die by the end of the week if we didn’t do it, so we made the hard decision to risk her life to save it,” Hayley says.
For access to the most advanced treatment options, Seeley’s family needed to travel once again to a hospital with more experience treating high-risk leukemias.
A week later, Seeley was admitted to Seattle Children’s and began treatment with the High-Risk Leukemia and Lymphoma team.
FINDING HOPE 2,600 MILES FROM HOME
Seeley’s AML was especially aggressive and could not be controlled with chemotherapy alone. She needed a bone marrow transplant (BMT) — a procedure in which healthy, donor stem cells are infused to replace the patient’s cancerproducing cells.
Story continued on inside back cover...
Today, Seeley is cancer free. Her parents describe their “little miracle” as smart and rambunctious.
Dr. Monica Thakar examines Seeley two years after a clinical trial made her successful transplant possible.
“I asked Seeley’s oncologist in O‘ahu where he would go if she was his child,” Hayley says. “He said he would be on the first flight to Seattle Children’s.”
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Seattle Children’s workforce became a second family for Seeley, Hayley and Shawn.
“Our trial is studying the use of natural killer (NK) cells from the donor to recognize leukemia cells and attack them to prevent recurrence,” Dr. Thakar says. “We are excited to combine this powerful immunotherapy tool with bone marrow transplantation to treat high-risk patients like Seeley.”
Typically, BMTs are most successful when the patient and their donor have closely matching tissue types. None of Seeley’s family members were a good match, so her doctors turned to the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), which has an international registry of potential donors.
“We looked in the registry but couldn’t find a well-matched donor for Seeley,” says Dr. Monica Thakar, inpatient medical director of Seattle Children’s Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplantation Program. “Groups under-represented in the registry and patients with multi-ethnic backgrounds, like Seeley, can be harder to match, which leads to disparities in the identification of unrelated donors.”
With these disparities in mind, Dr. Thakar developed a clinical trial with a unique transplant protocol so that parents, like Hayley, could be their child’s donor, despite being only a half-match.
Seeley was enrolled in the trial and had a successful bone marrow transplant when she was 4 months old.
HEALING AT HOME
Seeley handled her cancer treatment remarkably well with support from Seattle Children’s highly experienced care team. “She was always smiling,” Shawn remembers.
Eight months after arriving in Seattle, she was well enough to return to Hawai‘i. “Touching back down in the islands immediately triggered a different kind of healing,” Hayley says.
Today, Seeley is a cancer-free, rambunctious toddler. Shawn and Hayley call her their “little miracle” and are grateful for the care team that helped save their daughter’s life. “Our confidence in Seattle Children’s team and facilities superseded our expectations,” Hayley says. “It was the best place we could have been for cancer care.”
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A gift to Seattle Children’s means families can count on superior patient care and groundbreaking research that fuels breakthrough clinical trials like the one that saved Seeley’s life. You can be a part of the compassionate team our region relies on.
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Seeley, looking to a bright future after leukemia
A tenacious family. A world-class leukemia team. A cutting-edge clinical trial. All adds up to this golden outcome.
Seeley was just 2 weeks old when she was diagnosed with high-risk leukemia. To get the specialized care she needed, Seeley’s family was prepared to fly anywhere in the world from their home on Kaua‘i. With their oncologist’s recommendation, they chose Seattle Children’s. Seattle Children’s o ers the most advanced treatments and clinical trials in the Pacific Northwest for kids with leukemia . Today, thanks to the world-class team who treated her and a breakthrough clinical trial that saved her life, Seeley is growing into the girl she was meant to be: spunky, three and cancer free. Find your hope at SeattleChildrens.org.
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