Shannon and Shadrach. They make quite a team. When Shannon Doorhy was sick with leukemia, Shadrach, her 140-pound blue Great Dane, carried water and medicine in his backpack. He also pushed open doors and turned on lights for her. If he sensed that Shannon was about to have a seizure, he'd nudge her into a chair and steady her by sitting in her lap.

Today, Shannon is well. She just graduated from the CALS Department of Animal Science and is enjoying her first semester of veterinary school at N.C. State. At 23, she has an entirely new immune system, thanks to a bone marrow donor who has become an honorary family member.

According to her doctors her cancer is in remission, and in about 10 months, she'll be declared cancer-free. Cured.

To Shannon, the journey has been tough. But she's not looking back. A future in veterinary medicine awaits her, and she's excited.

"It's all kind of a blur now," she says.

Remarkably, Shannon maintained a near-perfect grade-point average throughout her illness and graduated in just five years. "People keep saying how amazing it was that I kept up my grades, but for a while there, school was all I had."

In the fall of 2001, during her first semester of college, Shannon experienced pain in her knees. An athlete, she assumed that the pain was the result of years of horseback riding and gymnastics. So the diagnosis of Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) came as a real shock to Shannon and her family. CML is a slowly progressing cancer that makes the body produce too many cancerous myeloid white blood cells.

That spring, she commuted to the N.C. State campus from her family's home in Sanford, determined to keep up with her schoolwork while undergoing chemotherapy and other intense treatments for her illness, including the removal of her enlarged spleen and numerous spinal taps.

She finished her freshman year with a 4.0 grade-point average.

Shannon's doctors decided on a bone marrow transplant to combat her cancer, and in June 2002, the National Bone Marrow Donor Program located a donor in Florida.

That July, Shannon underwent a successful bone marrow transplant that would rebuild her immune system, after it had been effectively destroyed by aggressive chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

"I told my doctors to make sure that they planned my transplant for summer, so maybe I'd be ready to go back to school by fall," Shannon says with a smile. "I'm way too much of a perfectionist. I did not like to be behind at all."

She signed up for a course through the university's distance education program, but was forced to withdraw from school because of severe complications from her transplant. Released from Duke University Medical Center in November 2002, Shannon returned home to live in complete isolation.

Enter Shadrach. The four-week old Great Dane puppy with a velvety blue-gray coat became Shannon's companion - and her helper. Named for the biblical figure who lived after being thrown into a fiery pit, Shadrach is a symbol of Shannon's strong faith.

He sprouted quickly from a fuzzy ball of fur to a lean, lumbering dog that outweighed his owner.

"When I'm standing, Shadrach can rest his head on my chest," Shannon says. "But, when he's on his back legs, he's taller than me."

Shannon's delicate new immune system needed time to develop and strengthen, so even houseplants and fish tanks posed a threat to her health during recovery. Shadrach kept her company while she healed.

"I couldn't go anywhere," Shannon says. "I stayed in the house that whole semester. Shadrach and I were never separated in those months.

"I got stir-crazy and took up a bunch of new hobbies, like drawing. I really wanted to play the piano, but my hands would shake because of my meds, so I couldn't do that. So, as soon as I was able, I signed up for distance-ed classes at State."

Shannon took three courses during the spring 2003 semester, earning two A+ grades and an A. By the following fall, her doctors cleared her to return to campus. Wearing a mask over her face and a bandana to tame her abundance of curly new hair, Shannon came back to N.C. State. And Shadrach was right by her side.

"I had to find a brand-new apartment that no one had ever lived in," Shannon says. "I couldn't have a roommate. It was just me and Shadrach."

Despite his wouldn't-harm-a-fly disposition, Shadrach took his job as Shannon's protector seriously, once cornering an unsuspecting maintenance worker in her apartment.

Shannon wrapped up her college career last May with flying colors, achieving a cumulative 3.94 grade-point average. With her family in tow - mom, dad, brother Shawn and sister Colleen, as well as her bone marrow donor Chuck - graduation day was exhilarating, she says.

"It was a really special day," Shannon says. "When I was in the hospital, I just focused on getting to the next day. I didn't think I was going to make it that far, but I did."

Mapping out the future, an idea once held tenderly and cautiously in her heart, is now the source of big excitement.

Shannon has her sights set on a career in large-animal veterinary medicine. And newly engaged, she'll be knee-deep in wedding planning before long. A talented musician, Shannon sings with her church and gives piano lessons to local youth. She also is actively involved in the American Cancer Society's "Relay for Life."

Down from more than 20 pills a day to just a few, Shannon says the remaining side effects from her ordeal are mostly irritating, not debilitating.

But, compared to the wild ride she has survived, she says, "It's nothing I can't deal with."

-Suzanne Stanard