But McKeena is not average at all. Seven years ago, she was diagnosed with Wilm’s Tumour – a solid cancerous mass found in one or both kidneys, usually in children between the ages of one and five.
She started chemotherapy at the age of four, going through three months of the treatment before surgery to remove a massive lump on her right kidney, as well as several lumps on her left one. She then underwent a year of monthly chemotherapy treatments. This landed her in hospital for several nights each month, followed by the accompanying two weeks of feeling sick and uncomfortable.
Five years on
Today McKeena is a healthy 11-year-old, and is back at school. Her last scan was all clear and she doesn’t need to continue going for yearly scans.
McKeena talks about school and her cousins. I learn that she is such the star swimmer at her school, where her classmates call her Kirsty after the Zimbabwean Olympic Gold Medalist. “When you come out of the pool, you’re hungry!” she says. Coincidentally, McKeena’s favorite stroke is the same one that Kirsty Coventry swims – backstroke.
She talks about Sestah, the nurse matron on the cancer ward at Parirenyatwa Hospital. McKeena spent a lot of time with her over the years, and she misses her. Her mother Jean continues to go visit the ward and the nurses.
She spends time with Sestah and reaches out to parents who look forlorn, confused and sad – trying to give them comfort in the knowledge that their child too can survive – like hers. We also talk about how we have to remember that no matter how hard it is for the parents, it is much more so for the child who is the patient, and how we sometimes forget that.
I ask McKeena who her best friend is, she tells me about Amy. I remind her about the time we met when she was four and I asked her who her best friend was – she told me “Francis” (Francis is Kidzcan’s Medical Support Officer). McKeena smiles and laughs when I remind her of this. Francis had spent a lot of time with her over the years, organizing scans, and medicine collection, visiting the ward and the playroom each time McKeena was an inpatient for chemotherapy treatments.
Kidzcan provided McKeena with free Chemotherapy drugs, prescription medicines, x-rays, CT scans, play-therapy, and family psycho/social support.
Post published in: News