Many of you may remember a story about Shanara Gall appearing in the Observer in March. For those of you who do not know Shanara's story, it is one you will never forget. The Stoughton teen was living life as a normal teenage girl. She attended her prom and was planning to attend college for nursing in the fall. It was only on the fateful day of Feb. 23rd that she found out her life was suddenly about to change forever. The only way this was discovered was because of a skating fall in which she hit her tail bone. Initially the physicians saw nothing serious, and informed the girl not to worry. But then Shanara complained of numbness in her lower extremities. After being transported to Regina for an emergency MRI it was quickly revealed that she had a cancerous mass growing around her spine. She was then diagnosed with an extremely rare type of cancer called AGL. This cancer is a type of leukemia and is fairly aggressive, meaning doctors had to immediately operate to remove a large part of the tumor. Unfortunately not all of it was removed. Her journey didn't end there. No, the strong positive girl began to fight the illness with everything she had. She had several chemotherapy treatments in Regina and had to go out of province for many other procedures. The love and support coming from the town of Stoughton, and the areas around, meant a team quickly formed to plan functions and raise money for her. This money was a huge help towards travel costs and treatments as well as housing her family members. Now for some good news, on Aug.13 the family received news that seemed to take forever. Shanara has completed her chemotherapy and is on the road to remission. The family is attempting to go back to normal life as much as possible, but that is quite a challenge after fighting this battle every day for five months. Hopefully one day the worrying will go away.
