Meet Karenne

Karenne

Hodgkin Lymphoma Survivor

In 2005, Karenne was faced with a rollercoaster of emotions. She gave birth to her son, Sebastien, and then just six weeks later, she was given a cancer diagnosis: Hodgkin lymphoma, stage 2A. “It is devastating, because you have just brought a life into this world and you're being told that you may lose yours.”

Fortunately, Karenne’s husband is a physician and was very familiar with the capabilities of Moffitt Cancer Center. “It has physicians who are trained in the specialty of Hodgkin lymphoma and so we knew that this was a place for us to go.” But once she began treatment, she found that there was more to Moffitt than technical expertise. “They gave me hope and they reminded me that together we would go through this and together we would beat this. And that's what they did each and every time I went for treatment,” she reflects. “They were the ones who reached across that table and would hold my hand during those very, very difficult times. When I felt I couldn't do it and I wanted to give up and they said, ‘No, we will be here to do this with you, together.’”

After beating her cancer, Karenne came across an opening for a new position at Moffitt: Director of Patient Experience. She knew she’d be the perfect fit. “It was an opportunity for me as a cancer survivor and someone who got treated at Moffitt to really impact the treatment and care that all patients at Moffitt get,” she explains. And she was right. Today, she works to make positive improvements in the patient experience by consistently asking a few very important questions. “What do patients want? What do patients need? When they're scared and they're anxious and they're feeling vulnerable, what can you do as a provider to make the difference for them?“ Because, as a survivor, she knows it’s the attention to care that ignites a patient’s courage.