In April 2011, we were living what we considered a ‘normal’ life at the time.  We had 2 children, Samantha and McKenna, and another (Ryann) on the way.  It all started when we felt a hard mass in McKenna’s abdomen area.  We kept an eye on it for a couple of days and when we could still feel the mass a few days later, we decided to take her to the doctor.  Her pediatrician felt the lump and immediately said that he was concerned that McKenna might have a malignant tumor.  He wanted us to go down to Scottish Rite to have some tests done.  We were in absolute shock…

In less than 24 hours of arriving at the hospital, McKenna was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hepatoblastoma – a liver tumor. After several tests, we find out that in conjunction with chemotherapy, McKenna would have to have a liver transplant.  In less than a week, McKenna had been stuck by needles, had blood drawn, had countless tests, including a CT scan, x-ray, and an ultrasound, and even a surgery to do a biopsy of her liver.   The following week, chemotherapy would start. Within 24 hours of her first chemo treatment, she was vomiting nonstop.  She was rarely able to go home from the hospital due to the extent of her side effects. She lost all her hair, she had horribly painful mouth sores that would prevent her eating or drinking, she had a teeth clinching diaper rash; she became thin and frail.  She had all the side effects that came with chemo, but the good part was that the chemo shrunk her tumor.

After 2 rounds of chemo, the doctors decided to put her on the liver transplant list because so much progress had been made. She was on the list for approximately 3 days when we got a call telling us that after reviewing her latest MRI results, they were concerned that the tumor had moved outside of the liver.  This would disqualify her from being a transplant recipient and she would be removed from the transplant list. So, back to chemotherapy we went.  We had to shrink the tumor even more to ensure that it was not outside of the liver, so she could get back on the list.  After the 3^rd round, she qualified and back on the list she went.

 Within exactly one week of being on the list, we got ‘the’ call.  A liver from a deceased donor that was McKenna’s size was being transported to the hospital.  We had 4 hours to be down there and get her into surgery.  The surgery started around 11 pm and we stayed awake all night in a waiting room. Once the surgery was over, the surgeon came to tell us that everything went well, and he felt that he got all of cancer out of her body. 

 McKenna had one more round of chemo to make sure that nothing was missed during surgery and spent the entire last 3 weeks of her treatment in the hospital.  After several months of being sick, treatments, surgeries, liver transplant, McKenna was coming home!  We were ecstatic! 

4 years after she was finished with chemo and had a liver transplant, we found out that she had cancer, again.  I can’t even begin to explain the feeling that we felt…all of us…me (her mom), my husband, and her sisters.  We were all devastated.  Luckily, she didn’t have to have chemo the second time around and only had to have surgery to have her kidney removed.

We constantly talk about and think about what good came out of this whole situation because we are big believers that He is using McKenna’s story for bigger things.  And, while it is sometimes hard to come up with anything, we can’t help but be thankful for the “extra” time that we got to spend with McKenna during this whole situation.  There have been days upon days that we would be at the hospital with McKenna, holding her and loving on her.  And, the love and support from our family and friends is greater than anything we could ever imagine. We are truly blessed and mostly thankful to God for everything we have.