A Young Life, Briefly Derailed, is Set Back On Course

AT 23 YEARS OLD, Reagan Lessick was working a couple of jobs — in her family’s graphics shop in Brownsburg and in hospitality for IndyCar — so she could save enough money to move out of her parents’ house and buy a place of her own.

Then, in late 2023, she got sick — an illness diagnosed at local clinics as strep throat and then mono before a biopsy revealed, just a few days after she turned 24, something unimaginable.

Cancer. Specifically, anaplastic large cell lymphoma, an uncommon form of blood cancer which affects immune cells. Even before she could connect with a specialist, she spiked a fever. Her neck swelled to the point where emergency physicians worried about her breathing and other vital functions.

When Rita Assi, MD, a hematologist at the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center, was called in, she found Reagan swollen, short of breath, coughing, in need of oxygen and with lymph node scans that were ablaze with disease.

Assi, a physician-scientist at IU School of Medicine with expertise in leukemia and lymphoma and a specialization in CAR T-cell therapy, started Reagan on a combination of chemotherapy and a targeted therapy called Brentuximab, a treatment approved by the FDA only five years earlier.

For Reagan, the side effects of chemotherapy — upset stomach, mouth sores — were short lived. Her swelling and fever were gone, her breathing normalized. “She came back to clinic barely recognizable,” Assi said.

The other signs of recovery were in her PET scans. Where they had been lit up before “like a Christmas tree,” according to Assi, they were soon clear. Both physician and patient cried.

“It was just mind blowing,” Reagan said. For Assi, who credits philanthropy as being essential for advancing cancer research helping patients like Regan, the clear scan and the remission in her patient was cause for celebration.

“That gave me a sense of immense joy and victory,” Assi said. “I went home and hugged my kids and danced with them.”

For Reagan, the return of her health meant she could return to one of her favorite pastimes — navigating her 23-foot sailboat across Eagle Creek Reservoir. It also meant she could resume thinking about her future.

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