{"id":4561,"date":"2020-05-15T13:29:50","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T17:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=4561"},"modified":"2020-05-15T13:29:50","modified_gmt":"2020-05-15T17:29:50","slug":"eighth-grader-makenzie-lawson-battles-leukemia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=4561","title":{"rendered":"Eighth grader Makenzie Lawson battles leukemia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Gracie Warda<\/strong><br \/>\nInPrint<br \/>\nFenton HS<br \/>\n1st Place Division 3, News Writing<br \/>\nHuman Interest Feature<\/p>\n<p><b>JUDGING CRITERIA<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lead captures attention, arouses curiosity<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Emphasizes new element, fresh angle<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Colorful, lively presentation; effective form\/style<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reflects adequate research, sound interviewing techniques<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Avoids summaries of published materials<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Effective use of facts\/quotes<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Interesting; appeals to the emotions<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Proper diction\/grammar<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is a fateful Monday when eighth grader at Andrew G. Schmidt Middle School (AGS) Makenzie (Kenzie) Lawson falls and injures her knee during gym class. She must be taken to a doctor, who will inspect the badly bruised knee. Upon blood work testing, instead of diagnosing a sprained or fractured knee, the hematologist discovers that Lawson has leukemia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s when we got the diagnosis,\u201d Lady Wolkow-Lawson, Lawson\u2019s mom, said. \u201cI always say that it was a blessing that she fell.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When asked to describe herself using one word, Lawson said \u201csilly,\u201d and Mrs. Wolkow-Lawson and the nurses nodded in agreement. She laughed as she described her incident in gym class.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was after the pacer test,\u201d Lawson said. \u201cWe were playing around with a volleyball, and someone threw it. I went to grab it and fell down over myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawson is undergoing several different types of chemotherapy, twice a day, to treat her aggressive leukemia. While in the hospital, she spends time playing card games with her nurse, Jenny Garcia, whom she likes to call \u201cJennaaay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was so excited to come to work today because I knew that [Makenzie] was coming in,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cI\u2019ve taken care of a lot of kids, at this age it is the hardest to deal with a diagnosis like this because they understand it, they know what cancer is. Even from day one, Makenzie has been like \u2018alright, let\u2019s do this.\u2019 She\u2019s been so strong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawson\u2019s strength and optimism have even been a comfort to her mother.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI take it day by day, one day at a time,\u201d Mrs. Wolkow-Lawson said. \u201cI have amazing family support. The community has been amazing\u2014 overwhelming. Makenzie\u2019s doctors and nurses have been wonderful, as well as everyone on the pediatric floor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In school, Lawson\u2019s favorite subject is math. She enjoys playing Crazy Eights with her friends, playing volleyball and supporting her teammates on the AGS and\u00a0Chaos\u00a0volleyball teams.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKenzie is so kind,\u201d Mrs. Wolkow-Lawson said. \u201cShe has a great sense of humor. She\u2019s strong, brave\u2026 she\u2019s always been such a good girl.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawson\u2019s aunt, Heather Wolkow, runs a Facebook page called \u201cKenzieStrong\u201d to keep her KenzieStrong friends updated. In addition, a spaghetti dinner will be held on Saturday, Jan. 25 from 4-8 p.m. at the Fenton Moose Lodge for those in the community that want to contribute. Even Lawson\u2019s friends have started brainstorming ideas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re in the process of making bracelets to sell,\u201d eighth grader Jena Fijolek said. \u201cWe had so many ideas, but we talk about this all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Garcia explains that most kids in Lawson\u2019s situation would complain, but instead, Lawson\u2019s mentality is positive: \u201ceverything will be back to normal in six months when I get through this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fentoninprint.com\/21933\/features-2\/eighth-grader-makenzie-lawson-battles-leukemia\/\">Click here for the story.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Gracie Warda InPrint Fenton HS 1st Place Division 3, News Writing Human Interest Feature JUDGING CRITERIA Lead captures attention, arouses curiosity Emphasizes new element, fresh angle Colorful, lively presentation; effective form\/style Reflects adequate research, sound interviewing techniques Avoids summaries of published materials Effective use of facts\/quotes Interesting; appeals to the emotions Proper diction\/grammar It [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61,4],"tags":[175,22],"class_list":["post-4561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-humaninterestfeature","category-nw","tag-2019-20","tag-division3","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joel Beeker","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=9"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-1bz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}