Rens fight to beat cancer

You hear stories of young people being diagnosed with cancer and your heart sinks.

My names Kirsty & I want to do something to help my friend Rhianna Hernando who is 30 years of age. Everyone who knows her knows her as ‘REN’ (& her very loving & supporting partner Chris) who is fighting bowel cancer. I know money isn’t the answer to everything but it certainly can make things a lot easier and take at least one burden away from such a selfless and caring person who would do anything for anyone.

Ren & Chris moved to the central coast at the start of 2020 as Chris got a great job offer, meanwhile ren struggled to get a stable job in the area. Ren finally found herself a great job that she loved in August 2021 But it was back in Maitland, they then hunted for houses and They found a beautiful home to rent whilst saving as much as possible to buy there very own home & start a family in the future. Ren began getting stomach pains in June 2021, she went and saw a doctor and was sent for bloods, scans, x-rays, cat scans & ultrasounds and still there were still these pains with no answers. She spent hours in the ED on days where it was unbearable and still nothing had come up. The pains got worse as the days went on she pushed for her doctor to send her for a colonoscopy and of course the wait list was huge in the public health system. Ren started questioning what it could be as the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her. The pains Ren was getting got to the point where everyday life was to hard to deal with - she couldn’t work, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t talk & just kept wishing it would go away. Ren & Chris decided that something needed to be done so they paid out of pocket expenses to get the colonoscopy done. In November Ren went in for her colonoscopy where they found a 10cm mass completely blocking her colon, this needed to be removed ASAP to find out what exactly this was. In November Ren was sent in for surgery to have a hemicolectomy. A hemicolectomy is a procedure where the left part of the bowel is removed and the removal of the Mass and then joined back together. Then the wait of 5-7 days to see if the reconnection worked properly without any problems, thankfully the procedure was successful!! Great news right?

On the 3rd of December 2021 Rens entire world came crashing down as she was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer. As you could imagine this hit her very hard she was completely shattered and everyone around her was absolutely devastated that such a young, caring & beautiful person could be going through this. The cancer has now spread to her lymph nodes. Ren underwent her first chemotherapy treatment on the 10th Jan 2022, this is an ongoing thing for Ren & Chris for (at this stage) 6 months every fortnight via an infusion through a portacath and a day stay in hospital then Ren gets a pump connected & gets sent home with this for 2 days whilst it continues to pump through releasing small amounts of treatment into the vein. Ren then has to return to have the pump removed after the 2 days. Ren is awaiting genetic testing to explore the possibility of hereditary bowel cancer (Lynch Syndrome) if this comes back confirmed Ren is at an extremely high risk of the return of bowel cancer and multiple other cancers in the lynch family such as cancer of the uterus/endometrial with testing of this not deemed reliable, she will then need to have a hysterectomy by the age of 40. The

Side effects she’s been experiencing are Nausea, fatigue, blurred vision, lightheaded/dizziness, loss of tastes and smells, mouth ulcers, peripheral neuropathy- this is where she’s been getting tingling/pins and needles, numbness and pain in her hands, discomfort and tightness in the back of her throat- the feeling like you cannot breathe or swallow- this is due to one of the three drugs that are given for her treatment this happens during her infusion and for up to 48 hours after. Rens hair has started to thin out already.

As such a long close friend of mine I want to do something, anything I can to help both Ren & chris. No one can visit or help Chris (who is still working full time, keeping on top of the house - yard maintenance, cooking, cleaning, Rens many appointments & looking after Ren when she can’t move) as she can’t get sick and with COVID so close to home it’s a high risk for her. Even if it’s just a couple weeks rent, or getting a mower man in just anything I can do to make life easier and any less of stress for 2 people who deserve a helping hand but wouldn’t ever ask for it from anyone.

Our Ren is a fighter and she will kick cancers but & come back stronger then ever. Thankyou & just know the support won’t be unnoticed