GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — We first told you about Mackenzie Paul last November after she went viral for an emotional TikTok post where she shared part of her cancer journey with her followers.
It was a diagnosis that turned her life upside down.
“I was starting my second year of med school, and it was the first day of my clinical rotation and I was in a patient's room. Nothing crazy was happening. There was no blood or surgery or anything like that, but I ended up passing out, which was weird,” Mackenzie said.
“I had a weird feeling about it, so I reached out to my [primary care physician] and asked for labs and I ended up getting labs done. They were really bad - my white count, my red count, everything was horrible. And at that point, being a medical student, my first thought was, I have cancer.”
Unfortunately, Mackenzie was right. In August 2023, she was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
“My world absolutely flipped upside down. I went from going a million miles per hour to having to only focus on my health, and that was challenging for me, losing my identity and my school,” Mackenzie said.
Beating cancer was on Mackenzie’s mind to be sure, but it wasn’t the only thing on her mind.
The 24-year-old and her husband, Brandon, dream of being parents someday.
Chemotherapy can have a huge impact on patients’ reproductive systems, especially the ovaries. So the Pauls went through their options with Corewell Health’s oncofertility team.
“We didn't have the time to prepare for IVF. We had to get the chemo going right away. So in November, I underwent a surgery where my ovary was removed and sent across the country. And now it's frozen, so whenever I am ready to have kids, I will eventually be able to get my ovary back in and hopefully have kids someday,” Mackenzie said.
The process is called ovarian tissue cryopreservation.
“It was just in 2019 deemed no longer experimental. So it's something that is new, and I do believe that we are the only place in Michigan who's offering this right now,” said Dr. Allison Close, a pediatric oncologist at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital.
Close said research shows future fertility is one of the most important things to young patients who survive cancer. That conversation is part of the goal of living happy, healthy and productive lives in the future.
“If we can talk about fertility preservation as part of that goal, then I think that a lot of families, that does give hope to them. This is a part of their lives that is really, really hard - the hardest thing that almost all of our families have to go through. But we can give them hope for the future,” she said.
Since our first story on Mackenzie aired, she went through a stem cell transplant in January.
“That was a long recovery, and a very difficult hospital stay. It was a couple of months of just staying at home. This past July, I had another biopsy, and my cancer has come back on a molecular level, so very small amount, but it's back,” she said.
“So now I'm moving forward with getting referred to MD Anderson in Houston, Texas. They have one of the best leukemia physicians in the country. I’m hopefully looking for clinical trials or potentially another transplant. I have lots of options with my age and my health,” she said.
Mackenzie said she wants other young people to know that while cancer is rare for people her age, it’s not impossible.
She said it’s important to know your body so you can identify when something is wrong and to be an advocate for your own health.
She also completed a 5K earlier this year and said she doesn’t want her diagnosis to define her.
“This isn't going take my life from me. I'm not going to let it steal these moments from me. I'm not just a cancer patient. I'm a person who likes to go for runs. I'm a person who likes to be with my friends. I'm a person who likes to be with my family. I'm a person who wants to travel. You can't put me in a box just because of my illness,” she said.
If you or someone you know is battling cancer, Mackenzie said she'd love to be a resource for you. You can reach out to her through TikTok or Instagram. Her handle is kenziepaul3.
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