McCauley among 'fortunate ones' in fight with leukemia

It was Daytona 500 week in 2007 -- and a typical week for Amy McCauley. Her husband, Roy, was in Daytona getting ready for NASCAR's biggest race as crew chief for Kurt Busch's No. 2 Penske Racing Dodge. While Roy was away, Amy was home in North Carolina tending to her own public-relations company.

That weekend, Amy went shopping for some new clothes and never felt quite right. She was fatigued and just couldn't get any energy.

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"I was trying on clothes and I just felt extremely fatigued," Amy recalled. "I had to keep sitting down in the dressing room and I just did not feel right. I kept thinking maybe I had too much caffeine this week, maybe I'm dehydrated, maybe I didn't eat enough protein today, maybe I'm just exhausted from work and I just need a nap."

Feeling exhausted, she went home, drank a bunch of fluids, ate and took a few naps. But after all that, she still didn't feel good. She had this "bone-weary fatigue" that wouldn't go away.

That Monday, Amy went to the doctor. It was February, a popular time for the flu, so she thought that could be the issue, but Amy realized she didn't have any other symptoms, aside from being overly tired. Her doctor picked up on that as well, and ordered some blood tests, just to be safe.

Tuesday, still feeling awful, Amy was driving to a business meeting when her cell phone rang. It was her doctor telling her that at 36 years old, it looked like she had leukemia.

"My first reaction was, 'No way,'" Amy said. "I remember the first question I asked him was, 'Couldn't it be anything else?' He said, 'If it's anything else you wouldn't be happy with any of those either,' so I knew at that point we were dealing with something really, really big and way beyond my level of knowledge. I didn't really know a whole lot about leukemia and it coming out of the blue like that, it took me a while to really process."

Amy was so taken aback by the phone call, she told herself this wasn't an "official diagnosis" -- so she went to her meeting and carried on with the rest of her day.

A couple days later, she went to see a specialist who performed a bone marrow biopsy confirming the news that she in fact had acute myelogenous leukemia. She was immediately checked into the hospital to begin treatment.

Her life, her career, her marriage -- all of it was put on hold to focus on curing her from a fatal disease. Yet, despite the odds, Amy remained upbeat, knowing she would need all the strength she could muster from here on out.

"I wouldn't allow it to be devastating, I just wouldn't allow that," Amy said. "I just had to stay focused on learning about this disease, beating this disease and staying as positive as I possibly could about it. My focus from that point forward was let's just beat this thing, let's do what we have to do to get rid of it.

"Leukemia, it feels like a bird of prey -- it kinda swoops down and plucks you out of your life."

For the next 10 weeks, Amy spent much of her time in the hospital, getting chemotherapy treatments and having countless tests performed on her. During that time, doctors learned that chemotherapy would not be enough for her, and she would need a stem cell transplant.

"Some leukemia patients don't need transplants because their chromosomes aren't damaged, but mine were and that put me in the transplant category," Amy said.

Her name was put on the transplant list, but a perfect match wasn't coming up. (Continued)