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Shannon Tavarez, age 11, has recently been diagnosed with leukemia. The young actor played the part of Nala in “The Lion King” on Broadway but was forced to remove herself from the show in April because of her condition.

Tuesday, August 17, Shannon received an umbilical cord blood transplant in a New Hyde Park hospital on Long Island.

Her doctor, Dr. Joel Brochstein, said that there were no complications during the transplant and her condition is excellent, although it will take two weeks to be able to tell if the procedure was really successful.

When Shannon was asked how it felt to be stricken with leukemia, she responded, “It hit me really hard, like someone was throwing a ball at me.” She went on to explain that she was onstage when she first felt symptoms, “My back and legs were tight and it hurt to walk.”

She had previously gotten help from the others in the production of “The Lion King”, who held a bone marrow donation drive, but to no avail as Shannon is a member of a minority group whose donor pool is apparently very small.

“This battle is a tough one, but I’ll get through it,” she says.

See videos of Shannon below: