LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Surrounded by nurses and staff, Alaina Kenney made the walk toward the golden 'End of Treatment Bell' at Norton Children's with a grin from ear to ear.
After four years, the celebration in early August marked the end of the 13-year-old's chemotherapy treatments.
Kenney said the first signs something were small things, like mosquito bites that wouldn't heal.
"My legs would lock up and I wouldn't be able to bend them," she recalled. "And I had twitches and stomach pain.
It was on Sept. 18, 2019 that Kenney said the signs grew too big to brush off as something else.
"I was here at my grandma's house getting ready for school upstairs, and I just felt really sick. I couldn't really see anything and I just felt really dizzy," Kenney said.
Eventually, she passed out and her grandparents called 9-1-1 to rush her to Norton Children's.
One of those who helped treat Kenney, Dr. Mustafa Barbour, said he still remembers the room she was in.
"I met Alaina in the emergency department when she came in," he said. "She was very sick at the time and she even had a seizure while we were seeing her."
Barbour said tests and scans eventually confirmed his initial suspicions based on Kenney's symptoms. She had neuroblastoma.
"Her neuroblastoma is what we call high-risk neuroblastoma, which means it takes a lot of work for us to be able to control it," Barbour said.
Alaina Kenney gears up to hit the softball field. (WDRB Image Courtesy Kenney Family)
Over the years, Kenney's treatment consisted of six cycles of traditional chemo therapy.
After the fifth round, her tumor had shrunk enough for surgeons to remove it.
"After finishing six rounds of chemo, we still detected some neuroblastoma cells in her bone marrow," Barbour explained.
Kenney eventually had a bone marrow transplant and stem cell therapy to get rid of the disease.
"When I would wake up every day, I would just want to go home, and that's all I could think about," said Kenney. "I think the thing I hated the most was I had to get these dressing changes, and they were very unpleasant, and I just hated those."
Kenney's grandfather, Bobby Kenney, said "it was every emotion imaginable on steroids - happy, sad, scared, all of it."
Throughout all of it, Kenney's doctors and family say she remained in good spirits.
When asked to describe her, Barbour said, "She's positive. She's strong. She's very brave. She's resilient."
"In probably one of the hardest weeks during her treatment, she couldn't even open her mouth to talk and I was like, 'Hey Alaina, how are you doing?' And I was like, you can complain and say you're feeling bad... but she said so-so. That's the kind of person she is," the doctor stated. "I can certainly say she did help me become a better doctor."
Kenney credited her grandfather's jokes and pranks that kept her spirits high along with the support from her medical team.
"She was never alone," said her grandmother Mary Jean Kenney. "One of us was always there."
Now that she is officially a cancer-free teenager, Kenney is back to doing what she loves.
"I do volleyball, cheer, softball and archery," she said. "I do two softball teams a year. I do fall ball and then I do a softball team in the spring."
As she looks toward her future, Kenney said she could never thank her medical team enough for all they did to help her.
"Thank you so much because you gave me the life that I have. Without it, I wouldn't be out here playing sports or interacting with my friends. I probably wouldn't have a life without them," she expressed.
When asked what her message would be to any other kids battling cancer, Alaina didn't hesitate when stating, "Be patient."
She continued with, "Look around them and appreciate their nurses their doctors and their family because without them who knows where they'd be right now, and to know they are going to get through this, even if they have to take the hard way."
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