Hometown: Vincent, OH
Age on Race Day: 10
Diagnosis: Wilm’s Tumor
When Kenadee was just 3 years old, she spent a typical Tuesday with her grandparents when the unexpected happened. Her grandparents noticed her diaper was full of blood. They rushed her to their local emergency room and called her parents to meet them there.
After the family arrived, Kenadee underwent an abdominal ultrasound and x-rays. The scans revealed a tumor had completely overtaken Kenadee’s left kidney. She needed to transfer to Nationwide Children’s Hospital immediately.
“I remember thinking, this can’t be real,” said Kayla, Kenadee’s mom. “I thought we’d get to Nationwide Children’s, and they would tell us we were crazy.”
But the diagnosis was real. Doctors at Nationwide Children’s confirmed Kenadee had stage 4 Wilms tumor, a cancerous tumor that had already metastasized to her lungs. Just two days later, Kenadee had surgery to remove her affected kidney. When it was discovered that the tumor had ruptured, her care team adjusted her treatment plan to include both chemotherapy and radiation.
After five months of treatment, her follow-up scans showed no evidence of disease.
Though her scans show no evidence of Wilm’s Tumor, Kenadee was recently diagnosed with ciliary body medulloepithelioma, a rare form of eye cancer due to a gene mutation called Dicer1.
“We are blessed to have such a wonderful oncology team at Nationwide Children’s,” Kayla said. “We couldn’t have had a better team to guide us through such a terrible situation.”
