Makenna rocks!
Pre-teen Sweetheart melts hearts of local
Music enthusiasts as She Battles Cancer
by Suzanne Corey
It was the week before Christmas when Makenna Renard’s
family noticed the bruising.
The bruises seemed to come with the slightest touch and were often very bad.
Then, she started to lose energy. The bubbly, sassy, fun loving, seventh-grade
cheerleader seemed to begin to fade. Immediately, her mother, Karen, took her to
get tested.
“I was at Legoland with Makenna and her twin 4-year-old brothers when they
told me the news,” said Karen. “I remember we had just gotten there and there
were so many people around us. When I answered the phone they told me, ‘you need
to bring Makenna here now. Not tomorrow. Not later. Now.’ I remember everything
at that moment stood perfectly still. I felt like I was in a fog. I couldn’t
breathe. I started hyperventilating. It was horrible.”
That was the day that Karen learned that her only daughter had acute myeloid
leukemia (AML), an aggressive cancer that starts inside bone marrow and develops
quickly, so quickly that doctors gave Makenna 6 to 9 months to live.
“I felt like they made a mistake. I felt like they would say ‘just kidding’
after they told me,” said Karen. “I felt like they had messed up. It was
completely mind-blowing.”
Time began to race by for Karen, family and friends, yet it felt like the
whole world had stopped as they watched Makenna undergo her first round of
chemotherapy.
“We started on Jan. 4th,” she said. “We were all so hopeful that we got it
out of her blood. She lost all her hair, she was so sick. Whatever you could
get, she did, hives, high fever, and rashes. But, it didn’t work. I had to be
the one to tell her that it didn’t do anything, after all that,” said Karen, the
emotional pain evident in her voice.
They pursued another round and then a third, but still nothing got better for
Makenna.
But Karen and her tight circle of supporters refuse to lose hope. So,
starting on March 29, Makenna will begin a pilot study at St. Jude’s Research
Hospital in Tennessee.
Once there, the 45-day treatment — that has only been tried on two other
patients — will begin. The trial procedure will attempt to take what they call
“killer cells” from Makenna’s parents and put them in Makenna’s body to try and
have them attack the cancer. If that works, she will then get a bone marrow
transplant from her brother, who is a perfect match.
“I don’t know what happens after that. I don’t even want to ask. This has got
to work,” said Karen. “I don’t care what I have to do or where I have to send
her. I will. I have watched other kids being wheeled out of Rady’s Children’s
Hospital and I collapse and want to throw up.”
Through the tears and the dark moments Karen is still
able to smile, though, when she thinks about Makenna throughout this horrific
experience.
“She’s an amazing kid. Earlier, she had a bone marrow aspiration, where they
basically take something that looks like a hollow ice pick and suck out the bone
marrow juices. Fifteen minutes after surgery, she went to hospital Pilates,”
Karen said proudly. “The doctors and nurses come in and constantly say, ‘I don’t
know how you are doing it, Makenna.’
“My own kid is blowing my mind. She is changing other people’s lives. She
gets all the other kids rallied up. She goes to their rooms when they aren’t
feeling well and says to them, ‘c’mon let’s go play a game or let’s go to school
or let’s go hide from the nurses.’ She’s amazing.”
And her Olive Peirce Middle School teachers, friends and counselors agree
wholeheartedly. OPMS counselor Eileen Tierney has been a constant support to
Karen through counseling, resources and even finding her a babysitter for her
twins. She talks to Karen almost daily and is always on the phone with other
parents and students to keep them up to date about Makenna.
Another support system Karen said she couldn’t live without is fellow parent
Laurie Chambers. The two have daughters the same age but weren’t friends before
the diagnosis.
“She drives kids down to see Makenna, she sells support bracelets before and
after school, she just loves my daughter and she’s amazing,” said Karen. “I
don’t know what I would do without her. I am driving her car right now because
mine is in the shop and she told me, ‘keep it as long as you need — a week, six
months, whatever.’”
Chambers met Makenna when her daughter invited her to her birthday party, and
she said she just instantly fell in love with the young teen.
“She is so funny,” said Chambers. “I bring carloads of girls down to visit
her weekly and one time we couldn’t go in Makenna’s room because of the risk of
infections, so we sat outside her window and she did a modeling show for us with
her beanies. At one point, all six of her friends were sitting outside texting
her and she sent them each the same text message saying, ‘don’t tell anyone, but
you are my favorite.’ We were laughing hysterically. Here is this girl who is
sick and stuck in her room, but she is making us laugh and just so full of
life.”
Chambers is there for the hard times, too. “Every day it changes for her and
that is really hard,” she said.
Before the next step, there was one surprise waiting for Makenna, a trip to
Orlando followed by a cruise through the Make-A-Wish foundation. Her wish was to
take a cruise, and last weekend that dream came true.
Anyone who would like to help support Makenna may send or bring all card,
gifts or donations to the Ramona Sentinel, 425-A 10th St. Checks may be written
to Karen Renard with “Makenna’s Miracle Fund” in the memo section. Chambers will
pick up the gifts once or twice a week from the Sentinel office. Chambers has
also put jars throughout the community for donations.
We here at Southern Rock Star Magazine are all Praying for Makenna, along with
many Rock and music enthusiasts including, Tom Roeck, Peter Read, Jerry Beasley,
Ben Thompson, Bobby Rogers, Chuck Smith,Teresa Wilson Hunt, Wade
Ledbetter, Blake Woodson, Gene Posik, Sharpe Dunaway, Chris
Moran, Greg McCuin, Franklin & Tracy Warfe, Diggit Johnson,
Cody Cbum Yancey, Doug Williams, Mary Holt & Wayne Willems of Arkansas Internet Radio & Little
Rock Entertainment, There too many People to mention in this group, and
just know that we are all praying and pulling for you Makenna! If anyone would like to add words of encouragement and prayer
you may go here and join her fan page at
Hope For Makenna She has amassed nearly 3600 fans around the country, and the prayers and
healing power are flowing to her daily and growing in even greater force! so
keep them coming.... Suggest her page to your friends and have them suggest it
to theirs, and so on and so on...
For more information, contact Tierney at etierney@ramonausd.net or (760)787-2473.
Poster Design by Cody "Cbum" Yancey