The Strength of a Mom: How One Young Woman Battled Cancer Through COVID-19 Pandemic

A serene setting on this Missouri farm is where Kristen Clenney is living her dream.

“I was about 8 years old, and I declared, ‘Dad, I want to be a vet,’” she remembers.

Her dad, Tom Wright, says Kristen was even younger than that when he knew animals were her calling.

“Oh, it was probably when she was 3,” he says. “She always helped me in the turkeys. She was the one daughter who the animals didn't bother her. She always liked the animals.”

Now a veterinarian in the neighboring town of Eldon, Mo., her career desires have been steadfast.

“I never changed my course at all; everything I did throughout high school and college directed me towards my goal of becoming a vet,” she adds.

A graduate of the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, she thought a large animal practice was her calling. But that changed when Kristen and her husband John had a chance to move back to her family’s farm.

“And as we move back home, we had just started our family. We had a son, and definitely my role on the farm changed, as well as my career, where I was a smaller animal veterinarian and having more controlled hours worked a lot better for our family,” she says.

Family first, Kristen is now a mom who just went through the fight of her life.

“In January 2020, I randomly felt a lump in my neck that I knew was something odd,” says Kristen. “As soon as I felt it, I knew it wasn't right.”

The next few weeks, were a whirlwind of doctor’s appointments, biopsies and ultrasounds.

“Unfortunately I found out that I did have thyroid cancer.”

Coping with the news, Kristen underwent surgery within five days.

“We were under the impression my tumor was small, they caught it early. I'd have one surgery, and that would be the end of it,” she says.

But it wasn’t so simple.

“We got the bad news that although my tumor was small, it was rather mighty so to speak, and it had spread. And I would be needing a second surgery as well as radiation therapy.”

The radiation crippled her ability to be around anyone, or anything, including her husband, son and animals. And she said that battle is when she almost hit a breaking point.

“Initially, they said they were going to take your whole thyroid, and I was on board for that,” she says. “But then the doctor changed his mind and said, ‘We're going to do half your thyroid, they've come out with new recommendations.’ I said, ‘I don’t feel comfortable with this,’ because what I originally felt was a lymph node. So I knew it had spread. I just knew it had.”

The one surgery turned into two. Radiation to try to get it all happened at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“To hear that news, it kind of knocked the wind out of my sails,” she says. “And I thought, ‘Why didn't I fight harder?’”

“I think she's always seen animals heal, and that was one of Kristen's problems,” says Kristen’s dad. “She understood the medical part of it. Animals and humans aren't a lot different. She knew what was happening.”

The medical battle came with a mountain of obstacles, as Kristen—the one who’s usually doing the healing—couldn’t do the healing herself.

“That was the first time John broke down through it all, because he knew he was losing his job due to the pandemic and he felt he was letting me down. Our whole world just felt like it was crashing around us,” she says.

At a time when the country was shutting down, Kristen was shutting down too.

“There were days I wanted to give up,” says Kristen.

The battle to keep fighting was one that took place both mentally and physically.

“I found out I was reacting really badly to my medication and my kidneys were shutting down, and that's why I felt so terrible,” says Kristen.

She was too weak to even do simple things on the farm, at the vet clinic and at home.

“I read something midway through my journey when I really struggling. It said, ‘It takes the same energy to be strong or to be miserable. It's your choice.’ After reading that, I made a conscious decision that every day I was going to choose to be strong. Because I needed to be strong, not only for myself, but for my husband, for my son for my family.”

She’s a wife and mom and now a cancer survivor.

“I feel very fortunate. Not everybody gets to see that after their journey,” she says.

And it was a yearlong journey that took grit and grace. 

“I know that through the love of my family and my faith, I can get through anything,” she says. “And really, it is not giving up. it was a complete mindset.”

A scar on her neck that could symbolize pain is now something Kristen wears with pride.

“When I look at that scar, I remember all I’ve overcome,” she says. “I remember to be grateful for each day because life changes immediately sometimes and to just continue to be strong no matter what life throws at you. Just keep going.”