For Glacier High School senior Abby Dose, the upcoming weekend of graduation celebrations doesn’t just signify the end of her high school career. It also marks the one-year anniversary of the day her life changed. 

Soaking up the early summer sunshine on June 1, 2024, at Flathead Lake, the 17-year-old spent the afternoon batting a volleyball around with friends. When the sky began to darken, the girls returned to Dose’s house.  

That’s when Dose said she noticed something strange. A constellation of bruises spread across the insides of her forearms. 

Dose fumbled through her memories of the day, but she couldn’t recall anything that would explain the wounds. She showed the bruises to her friends, but they were also perplexed. 

“Maybe it’s cancer,” one friend quipped. 

Dose’s parents were celebrating their wedding anniversary with an overnight trip to Swan Lake, so Dose called a family friend who worked in the medical profession. They advised her to have her blood drawn at a nearby clinic, just to be safe. 

“I thought I was anemic or something,” Dose recalled.  

What Dose expected to be a quick trip to the clinic swiftly unraveled into a full-fledged medical battle. 

The initial blood tests showed dangerously low levels of hemoglobin and platelets, so doctors shepherded her to the emergency room at Logan Health for more testing. There, another blood test showed the presence of immature blood cells called myeloblasts. The so-called “blasts” are typically only found in bone marrow, but some forms of cancer can cause the cells to spill over into the bloodstream.  

Around 2 a.m., Dose was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and admitted to the hospital. Doctors extracted spinal fluid and bone marrow for more testing, which revealed that Dose also had a genetic mutation that would make the cancer more difficult to treat. 

Looking back, Dose found it difficult to pinpoint when the news of her diagnosis sunk in. After the flurry of tests, she was medevaced to a hospital in Denver that specialized in bone marrow transplants. Doctors surgically inserted a catheter into Dose’s chest so she could begin chemotherapy treatments. It was the first surgery that Dose had ever had. 

In the following days, Dose learned a seemingly endless array of medical terms. She made decisions she had never considered before, like whether she wanted to freeze her eggs to preserve her chances of having a genetic child.  

“There would be moments when I would sit there and cry,” recalled Dose. “My whole world turned upside down.” 

Dose’s mother stayed in Denver, working from her daughter’s hospital room during the day and sleeping at a nearby boarding house at night. A few friends were able to make the 1,000-mile trip to visit in person, but most of Dose’s social connections came through her phone. 

“Everyone else was living their life, and I’m sick,” she said. “My whole life was seeing other people on Instagram and TikTok.” 

The one bright spot in the hospital, said Dose, was the nurses. After working as a certified nurse assistant at Immanuel Living during her junior year, Dose had a burgeoning passion for the medical field, and many of the nurses in the cancer ward were young, close to Dose’s age. Some had also undergone cancer treatments, and they commiserated with Dose about the frustrations of showering with a catheter and the loneliness of the hospital room. 

After undergoing three rounds of chemotherapy to kill the cancerous cells in her bone marrow, on Sept. 6 she was declared cancer-free. But she only got a short respite at home before returning to the hospital for a bone marrow transplant. Fortunately, Dose and her sister were a 100% genetic match, making the odds of a successful transfer much higher. 

While the procedure proved relatively simple for her sister, Dose’s own post-surgery recovery was full of potholes. She developed a painful infection in the lining of her digestive tract that made it difficult to eat or drink. She became so dehydrated, she was re-hospitalized. Simple tasks crippled her body with fatigue. 

“Just getting from the parking lot to the hospital I was winded,” she said. 

Despite the complications, the transplant ultimately proved successful. On Feb. 8, Dose was fully released from the hospital. 

Dose recognizes that her life may never be what she had once considered normal. She still spends more time at the doctor's office than the average 18-year-old and worries about cancer returning.  

But Dose prefers to focus on the future, rather than dwelling in anxieties. 

Dose plans to study pre-nursing at Montana State University in the fall. While she is undecided about the specific focus she wants to take, Dose draws inspiration from many of the nurses who helped care for her. Like them, she hopes to transform her own experiences with illness into personal connections and care. 

“I’ll know what my patients have gone through,” she said. 

Glacier High School holds its graduation on May 31 at 10 a.m. at the high school, 375 Wolfpack Way, Kalispell. About 300 students are expected to graduate.  

Reporter Hailey Smalley may be reached at 758-4433 or [email protected].