The End

First off, I feel the need to apologize. I have been slow about posting. Sorry:(
BIG NEWS: I am 100% done with all of my treatments. So, now the cancer is not only gone, but I am done having to fight it too! Thursday morning I walked out of the cancer on top of the world knowing that I would never have to set foot in there again, (at least not for a treatment, I will only be returning for check-ups and in comparison those are incredibly easy).It feels great knowing that at least for now I am done with cancer. The technichans were so sweet about me finishing too. They had a certificate of completion printed up for me and everything. I got to keep the mask they used for my radiation treatments as well. I am not quite sure what I want to do with it tho. My first thought was to destroy it, but now, after thinking a little bit more about it, I like the idea of turning it to some sort of souvenir. If you have any good ideas on how to do that please send them my way.
Unfortunately, I didn't make it out of my radiation treatments unscathed. As predicted by the doctors, I got my sunburn and bad. In fact, at the moment, I look pretty funny. There is a line almost right down the middle of my chest and on one half there is what looks like a terrible sunburn and on the other is my,lets go with, ivory (it sounds better then pasty ) white skin. The burn goes across the one half of my chest and all the way up my neck ( everywhere the radiation treatments went). With each day the burn gets a little bit worse. As a result, Aloe Vera has become one of my best friends. Not to worry though I can handle it. A few summers ago I was stupid enough to go tubing down the salt river without putting any sunscreen on my legs and boy did I pay for that mistake. Sure my legs looked a little red when I got off the water, but the next morning when I woke up not only were they RED, but they were swollen to twice their usual size. My knees were nowhere to be found. I couldn't walk. I sort of shuffled or waddled instead. Some of my friends made a joke out of my handicap giving me the nickname Happy Feet and almost everyone ( I am talking friends, coworkers, family, and I am sure even a couple of strangers) got some sort of embarrassing picture or video of me trying to do even the simplest of things like putting my socks and shoes on. You see, at the time, any task that required bending my legs in anyway was practically impossible and I looked like an idiot even attempting them. I tried turning to the doctors for some relief or even just a tiny bit sympathy but they just laughed and said "What do you want me to do? It is a sunburn." My suffering lasted over two weeks. The burns on my legs turned into the nastiest things I have ever seen in my life. They were blistered and oozing and red and swollen and just plain gross. Anyway, my point in telling you all of this is that if I can somehow survive that sunburn I know I can make it through this burn, or any burn for that matter, despite how uncomfortable it is. Nothing,, and I do mean nothing, will ever beat the horribleness that was that sunburn. SPF people! That is what it is all about. Lesson learned.
Oh, I forgot to tell you about my trip to see Dr. Bhalla. Surprisingly, it was actually really nice to be back in his office because this time everything was different. I was done. I wasn't sick any more so everyone's attitude towards me had changed, or maybe it was my attitude that had changed, but either way everything about the atmosphere was new. It was peaceful and positive and upbeat. I didn't feel so weighed down and bothered anymore. I really liked seeing everyone again especially my chemo nurse Dianne. She came running over to give me a big hug and she told this story of how she had this guy throw up on her just a few day prior as she was flushing his port with saline and it made her think of me. I told that I wasn't sure I liked the idea that every time some one threw up on her she would think of me, but I guess that is just the way it goes. As for the more important stuff however Dr Bhalla informed me that my blood work looked great and that from now on I will only need to see them once every four months and each time before I come I will need to have a cat scan and blood work done just to make sure that the disease is staying away.
It is strange to think that from now on my life will be basically normal again. These last several months have been hard but wonderful. I have learned and grown so much. There is no way I would ever change anything about what I have had to go through. I am truly and honestly grateful for it. To me it is just more proof that my Heavenly Father really does know what he is doing. He has a much better understanding of what we need and even what we want then we do. Thank goodness for that!
Now, I could lie and say that I will be still posting fairly often, but I know the truth. With this whole ordeal being over I probably won't be posting ever. As you may have noticed by my already infrequent posts, blogging isn't really my thing. I am never sure of what to write. At least with cancer I had a subject to start with. Now, I have nothing. So I think this is the end for me. Please do keep in touch tho thru facebook or email (mckenna.hansen@gmail.com).
Love you all!!!!!

Kenna

10 Down, 10 To Go :)

So, I have officially made it half way through my radiation which means I am just 10 appointments away from the end! I am super excited because from then on all I have is check-ups...hopefully. As I have mentioned before in previous posts, my recent goal has become prevention. I don't want Hodgkins to come back nor do I want to get any other kind of deadly or life altering disease, cancer or otherwise. I am proud to say I have been hitting the gym practically every morning for the last few weeks as a step towards living a new kind of lifestyle where Cancer and other fatal illnesses are less threatening, but there are still a few things I need to change around if I want to be truly successful. I'll get there, I promise, it is just hard to change everything at once and I don't want to loose motivation so I am taking one step at a time.
Now being half way through my treatments, however, just as the doctors predicted, side effects have begun to show. The best way to describe it would be a sunburn inside and out. My skin has taken on a reddish tint and has become a bit sensitive wherever I have been treated and my throat has become "inflamed" in the same way. What that basically means is that it hurts like heck to swallow anything. The pain starts in my mouth and goes all the way down too the pit of my stomach. It is really similar to what I was experiencing when I first started chemo minus everything tasting like metal. Luckily, today when I went in the doctors were able to give me some mouthwash to help with the pain. The mouthwash is able to numb my throat for an hour or so every time I take it so I am able to eat. The funny thing about this is that my swollen throat also causes me to get the hiccups really bad and quite often. A few times it has been slightly embarrassing. Let me just tell you it is really hard to try and talk to customers when every other word you are hiccuping. Ha ha. I look like such a dork. Oh well, it has become a joke between me and a couple of my coworkers. Hopefully the mouthwash will be helping with that too.
Anyway, I decided to have the radiation technicians take some pictures of me in my mask to give you guys a better idea of how my treatments work and just to have for my own personal record. I felt so awkward going in the room today holding my camera thinking that I was weird for wanting pictures, but apparently most patients ask for a few pics because before I could even finish asking them they new exactly what I wanted and were more then happy to do it. In fact, they almost had it down to an art. They new exactly how to have the lights and what shots to take. Ha ha. I posted a few of the pictures they took below. As you can see I look lovely in my mask. I do get to keep it once my treatments are over :). The big gray thing that is hanging over me is actually this really fancy hi-tech machine that not only gives my pin pointed treatments but takes X-rays as well. During my treatments, it is able to rotate around me so the doctors can get the perfect angle. Of course it is also the obnoxious thing shoots off the green lasers and makes all of the noise too, but it is pretty cool huh?




Alright, I think that is all I have for now. Next week I go in for my post chemo check up with Dr. Bhalla though. I will be sure to let you know what he says.

Ttyl.

Kenna!

The Girl in the Plastic Mask

Well folks I have officially begun radiation and so far so good. I still don't like the mask, who would, but I was fortunate enough to have my time slot moved back to 7am and it is working fabulously. For any of you that know me and my sleeping habitats you know that 7am is incredibly early for me and as it turns out, in this situation, that is a good thing. Why? Because I am still half asleep when I go in for my treatments. My mind isn't nearly as alert as it is in the afternoon which means less of a freak out for me. I am able to just close my eyes and drift off. Actually falling asleep is impossible because of all the noises and lasers, but I am able to doze enough that my treatments don't seem so bad. They are over before I know it. :) I go in, get changed into my robe thing, head into the radiation room where the therapists put my mask on, bind my feet, line me up with the machine using my tattoos ( that's right I have four of them. They are really tiny but still I am so hardcore now), take a picture or two with their fancy machines, and give me the radiation treatment which lasts about 5 minutes or so, and then I am gone.
Its a strange sensation getting radiation done. It kind of reminds of using Icy Hot. It is itchy, and burning, and cold all at the same time. I haven't suffered from any of the side effects of radiation thus far but the therapists just reminded me today that I probably won't be bothered by anything until about two weeks in. I am crossing my fingers that whatever does come is easy to handle. From what I understand the worse things that can happen are my throat swelling up and my skin feeling as though it was sunburned. That's not too bad. Funny enough, however there is one thing that happens every time I am in there that nobody cared to warn me about. The mask, because it is so tight on me, leaves these little imprints on my forehead. I walked out of the cancer center after my first treatment having no idea that I looked like a character from Star Trek. It wasn't until I got in my car and caught a glimpse of my forehead in my review mirror that I noticed. Man, I must of looked like a complete dork standing there talking to everyone. Oh well, there really isn't anything I can do about the imprints. I got some pictures of the imprints and posted them below. Seriously, I look like an alien. I have no eyebrows and these tiny little bumps in strange groupings covering my face, but do take noticed that my hair is coming in rather well. Woo hoo. I am excited to have it back. Just a few more weeks and I should be able to style it somehow. Hopefully by then my eyebrows will be back too.
I have an appointment with my oncologist on July 9th to see how I am doing post chemo. It should be interesting to see what he has to say. I will also try and keep you posted on my radiation treatments, although I doubt there will be anything too exciting happening there.
Anyways, that is all I have for now. Ttyl.

Kenna :)

And the radiation fun begins...

So, yesterday as planned, I went in for my radiation appointment to set-up to all of my treatments. Aside from the fact that I had some difficulty figuring out how to tie the robe they gave me to use (it was this way weird wrap around thing) the appointment went really smoothly. Basically all they did was hook me up for a Cat Scan and marked, with permanent marker, a starting point for aligning my radiation treatments. They have to make sure the radiation goes to the exact same place every time, eventually the marker will be replaced with small, freckle sized, tattoos.
I walked out of the cancer center totally stoked. I had all of my 20 appointments scheduled and I had gotten the rocking time of 7 am so I would still be able to work 2 jobs this summer like I had been planning. Radiation appeared, then, to be a million times easier then chemo and I was excited that while it was going to be a minor inconvenience going in every morning, as I really am not a morning person and 7 is pretty dang early, I would be able to sail through it and be done in no time. Well, a few hours after being from home I was sitting at my computer looking for that second job my phone started to ring. It was the cancer center. Wondering why on earth they would be calling me, I picked up on the phone. They informed me that my radiologist decided to go a different direction. My treatments were now going to be more complicated and I had to come back in and get rescanned and marked for my treatments and all of my appointments they had just scheduled were canceled. I was crushed. I didn't want anything more complicated. I just wanted to be done.
Luckily, my dad was able to go with me to my appointment this morning. We got there with a ton of questions as we really didn't know what this complicated procedure was or what its effect was going to be on me. I have never been good at digesting what doctors say to me. My dad is much better at that so the nurse was able to explain to him what exactly they were going to do. The procedure is called IMRT. It is the newest technology in radiation (from what I understand) and is also referred to as image guided radiation. What they do is take scans of you and with the help of the computer only target the tumors instead of a general area, as they were going to do before, so it helps avoid any of your body's other organs. Because of that, it really is the better way to go, but there is a catch. I can't move at ALL when they are treating me so I am required to use a face mask to ensure that I don't go anywhere. That is why I had to go back today, to make the mask and get scanned and marked while I was wearing it.
So, they had me go into the room and lie down on the scanner's bed thing as I had done the day before while they explained how the mask mold was going to work. It is this really hard plastic that they run under hot water to make it pliable. Then while its still hot they quickly mold it to your face and wait for to re-harden. Once it was hard then they would run me through the scanner and use the laser to remark you. The task seemed fairly simple, but somewhere in the middle of the scan I realized what exactly was happening to me. I was strapped to the table,I couldn't see or hear anything, and there was no escape. I lost it! I began to totally freak out. I wanted out so bad I was in tears, but at the same time the more rational part of me knew everything was going to be fine and I just needed to stay still for a few more minutes so they could finish the scan and I could go home. I was having trouble deciding which part of me to listen to and the technicians started to notice that I was becoming really uncomfortable. They tried their best to keep me calm during the rest of scan and quickly came to get me out of the mask when it was finally over. Relief instantly washed over me when they took the mask off. I could breathe again. I had no idea that I was that claustrophobic. I thought I was done and could go home, but once again I was wrong. The pictures had gone blurry. I had moved too much. We had to start the scan all over again. The second time I was able to keep myself calm, but I still hated every second of it and this was just my first time having to do it. I still had another 20 appointments to go through. Then, to add the icing to the cake, they told me that they had to push my starting date back a full week and the earliest they could do my appointments was 10 am and because this procedure was more complicated it would be a 15 to 20 min procedure instead of a 5 to 10 minute procedure. While I was happy I didn't have to get there so early in the morning it also meant that the earliest I could be to work was noon maybe 11:30 at best and getting a second job was going to be 10 times more difficult. :(
That is a lot to swallow, but I know they are only doing what is best for me and in the long run I will be really grateful for that. I also know that in time being in the mask won't freak me out as much and I will be able to handle things better....I look forward to that. I have to believe, as it was with chemo, that although things look grim at the moment, once I get going I will realize that it isn't as miserable as I thought it was going to be and that I am strong enough to make it through. :)
Anyways, my first treatment will be on the 17th. I will let you know how everything goes.

Kenna

Cause For Celebration

Well, it seems as though things have turned almost completely around for the Hansen clan. Just within in the last few weeks we have had some many things to celebrate. I finished up my chemo, Ethan graduated high school, Jerah found out she was pregnant with twin boys, and my parents reached their 25th wedding anniversary! Things are really looking up. Everyone is doing awesome, including Tanner (my brother on a mission) whom we received a phone call from on Mother's Day. In celebration of all that happy news, our family decided to take a trip to Disneyland (as it is one of our favorite places on the planet) and we had a blast. It was so much fun just sit back and have a good time and not worry about all of the troubles we have had over the past few months and as usual we came home from the trip with tons of stories and memories that will be a source of laughter for years to come. I also threw a little party, with the help of friends, to celebrate me being done with chemo. I had an awesome time there too and am really appreciate all the people who help put it together and came to show thier support. It means a lot to me. Thank you so much!!
In other news, the day after we returned home from California I went and got my port removed. It was probably one of the most exciting things that has happened to me in awhile. It just made me being done with chemo so much more offical. Plus, the port was kind of gross looking so I was happy to see it go. I have never felt better then I do now and I feel as though I am getting to return to my normal self. I have a couple of weeks until I start radiation so I am enjoying my time away from the medical offices, but I am also really anxious to get this radiation stuff going. I just want to get it over with and find it frustrating that I have to wait to get started. I would be lieing if I said I am not nervous about it however. I have never done radiation before, obivously, and don't really know anyone who has, so I am not quite sure what to expect and I don't like knowing how I will personally respond to the treatments. I have a "planning session" on Wed. with my radoligist though so I should have a schedule for all of my treatments soon and I know that will make me feel a little bit better. I will let you know how that all goes.
I think that is all I have for now....
I have included some pics below.
Ttyl,
Kenna

D-O-N-E, DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Babe all of those exclamation points are for you! ;) ]
I did it! I am officially done with chemo!!!! This is a pretty exciting place to be! After 12 rounds I have finally made it to the end. I couldn't have done it tho without all of the amazing people who have supported me and given me encouragement through out this entire process.First and foremost my gratitude goes to my Heavenly Father for looking after me and my health. Next, My Oncologist, Dr, Bhalla, was awesome (even if at times he was forgetful). My chemo nurse, Diane, was amazing, as was my other nurse (don't know the technical name for her), Shelly, and the entire staff at Ironwood Cancer Center. I also have an incredible list of family, friends, coworkers, classmates, teachers, mentors, and strangers,whom I now consider great friends, that I owe a huge thank you to as well. THANK YOU!!!! BUT the biggest I love you and thank you goes to my brothers and sisters and my parents. You guys are without a doubt the best family a girl could ask for. I have no idea where I would be without you. You made what could have been a completely miserable couple of months so much easier on me not only by giving me the love, support, and encouragement I needed, but by keeping me laughing and smiling and just being there for me every step of the way. I consider myself tremendously blessed to have all of you. Mom and Dad I I love you tons and I hope you know how much I appreciate everything you have done and you do do for me. I couldn't have asked for better parents.
So, enough of that ( although I really do mean it from the bottom of my heart). Once again, everything went smoothly and the feeling of walking out of that office knowing that I don't have to go back in two weeks for my next round was indescribable. I am not sure tho that it has really sunk in that my chemo is done. I know it is, but I am not sure if I believe it 100%. That is going to take time.
Dr Bhalla, will be setting me up with Dr Woo, a Radiologist, soon. So, I should know in the next couple of weeks what I should expect as far as radiation goes. To my surprise, I don't have redo any of my scans right now. I think the results from my half way point were satisfying enough. Dr. Bhalla said I will just be doing them periodically from now I on as a check up. That is so cool, but it is also a little scary. Everytime I go to get a scan done from now on I know I am going to be nervous about the result. I am, however determined to change my lifestyle around in an attempt to avoid getting cancer ever again. I have read quite a few articles and have browsed thru several books for ideas on what to do to get myself in better shape and keep cancer away and if you have any tips I would love for you to send them my way. This is something I really want to do. The goal is to live the rest of my life Cancer free, but if it does come back I at least want to be in a fighting position. As I have said before, I am one stubborn girl and I absolutely refuse to go down without a fight and giving it everything I have!!! I intend on having somewhat of a new atttitude and outlook on life as well. You only get one shot so it is important to have the courage to really live your life. I had a coworker, a really sweet girl, Reba, who was kind enough to buy me a little gift for finishing my chemo. She got me a ring to remind me of where I have been and what I can do. The package has a quote on it from Vincent Van Gough that reads "What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything," and the package goes on to say "Whenever you wear this ring remember to be courageous, follow your dreams, and love life." That is exactly what I plan to do and I am so excited to have this adorable ring to serve as my constant reminder to do just that.
Before I let you go, I should also mention we are throwing a party to celebrate my victory this round. It will be held May 30th ( a saturday night) at a close friend's house. Anyone who wants to come and join in the the celebration is welcome. Please just email me at mckenna.hansen@gmail.com and I will send you all of the info you need. We would love to have you.
Ttyl :)

Kenna!

!!!!!!!!!!!! Uno Mas !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ha ha, my roommate always jokes that every time I put more and more exclamation points in my titles, but it is only because I am more excited. Its now down ONE chemo. Can you believe it? I certainly can't. Sometimes it felt as though this day would never come and yesterday, just for one second, it really seemed as if it wouldn't. I met with my oncologist, Dr. Bhalla, and as he was looking over my paper work and talking to me he was acting as if I still had several chemo treatments left to do. I was completely panicking in my mind thinking that there was no way I could possibly do this any longer, six months was more then enough, and then finally, after what felt like an eternity, he said "Oh yeah I see that we had you down for six cycles and this is the first round of the sixth cycle so your next chemo should be your last one," .... whew, I was so relieved. Then, my dad jokingly replied "its a good thing you said that or she might have jumped you." The sad part is, that is probably true. I mean I know my doc is only looking out for me and wants me to get all of the treatments that I need to get better, but if I had my way I would never set foot in a cancer center ever again for the rest of my life, although I know that really isn't possible. I admire the people who are able to go back in to those places and talk to the new patients about hope and survival. Maybe one day I will be strong enough to do that myself, there have been so many people who have helped me and being able to that for someone else would be amazing.
Anyway, as usual things went off with out a hitch yesterday and I have nothing but the my normal side effects of tiredness, soreness, nausea, and that funky taste in my mouth. EWW. I just keep telling myself I only have to hang in there for one more round. On May 12th I am DONE. Two weeks and counting.