“In seventh grade I went to have a trial treatment in Iowa City for a weekend. It was what I would consider one of the worst weekends of my life.
          They took a bone marrow sample from me. That’s basically where they stick a big, hollow needle into your hip bone.
           I was so tense about it. When I get tense I tend to block off numbing medication and the laughing gas. So I felt the entire process.
           I screamed and I kicked for an hour. Afterwards I started to relax enough to let it take affect.
    
           I believe this is also the weekend where I was isolated for a night. They put radioactive iodine into Kool-Aid and made me drink about four cups of it. Then they put me in a room that was covered in paper.
            There was paper on the floor, the walls, over the TV. I was wearing a paper gown.
            The bed was covered with disposable sheets. The nurses that treated me were in space suits.
            At that point I was radioactive. ‘Glowing green,’ as my dad said.
             I remember how lonely it was. My dad couldn’t come in further than a foot into the doorway. There was a line on the floor that he couldn’t pass in order to talk to me.
             After that, I told my dad that I didn’t want to do anything more. I just told him I want to be normal.”

            “You can’t appreciate living until you know you have to die.”

            These eleven words play a large role in the thoughts and philosophies of senior Kendra Swanson. Her life has been full of questions regarding how long she will live, because in fifth grade she was diagnosed with a fatal form of cancer.

            In late summer, 1999 at a routine checkup, Swanson’s physician noticed that her neck was abnormally large. It was suspected that there was some lymph node swelling from a something like a cold. Never the less, she went to a specialist to get tested.

            “Some jerk [specialist] in West Des Moines performed two biopsies, and both times it came out benign. My normal physician thought that that was wrong. So my regular physician sent it up to Mayo Clinic and as soon as they got it, they found out I had cancer.” Swanson said.

            On the last days of summer before fifth grade, she was diagnosed. And a few weeks before Kendra Turned ten, she had her first treatment for her condition.

            At that age, she couldn’t help but block out the fact that she was diagnosed with a fatal disease. She didn’t believe it. She was much more interested in reading The Hobbit and going to the library with her father.

            Swanson had three surgeries at Mayo Clinic to remove as much cancerous tissue from her neck and lungs as possible. Two operations took twelve hours. One took nine.

            Kendra came back to her fifth grade class with a scar stretching from ear to ear. From then on she didn’t eat lunch in the cafeteria. “People felt like they had to tiptoe around me like I was made of glass. When all I wanted was to be normal,” Swanson said.

            Every day she went into her classroom during lunch and ate with Mrs. Martindale. She went there to avoid those who made fun of her for the scarring around her neck.

            Swanson went through many drastic ups and downs dealing with her condition. She went from not believing it, to seeing its repercussions, to growing tired of the world, to accepting it.

            When she was in seventh grade, her decisions about treatment changed. “Seventh grade year, Mayo Clinic ‘kindly’ decided to kick us out. And when the most technical medical facility in the world kicks you out, you’re pretty much screwed.” Swanson said.

            “This is after three surgeries. They shoved a trache-tube down my throat. They put me through the most radiation that a human can survive.” Swanson said. “I told my dad I didn’t want to do anything more. I told him I wanted to be normal.”

            From that point on she decided to forego any treatment that might cure her cancer. While Mayo Clinic rejected her, she decided to stop seeking treatment. “After that, I was free. I was aloud to make a choice as to what happened to me. I was able to live and had time for normal things.” Swanson said.

            At that point she let people think she was healing. “Joke’s on you.” Swanson said. And she waited for the people around her to mature.

            Beginning her freshman year, she started to showcase a dark sense of humor about the condition. From her experiences she gained scars, a hole in the throat, and a number of “cancer jokes”.

            She would joke with her sister about when she was going to die. She laughed with her friends about getting to go to college for free, simply because she had cancer. “People wonder if they can really joke about cancer. At work, I joke with friends about cancer, and my co-workers are usually shocked.” Swanson said.

            But Swanson doesn’t think that this is socially taboo or unacceptable. “I told someone who was offended at my jokes that the moment that I don’t have cancer, I will stop joking about it. Until than, that is my privilege” Swanson said.

            “I use cancer jokes to open people up to the concept.” She believes that humor and comedy is light hearted, but has the power to open peoples’ minds.

            “Everyone has a sense of humor which can bring out understanding of controversial topics. If everyone could use humor to their advantage, it would raise the worlds understanding to a new degree.”