Senior Spotlight: Brenna Messner’s Journey From Patient to Nurse

This piece is part of our Senior Stories series, in which we highlight GU students throughout the year.

Name: Brenna Messner
Major: Nursing
Hometown: Lake Oswego, Oregon

Brenna Messner’s (’24) nine-month battle with cancer, one of the most challenging experiences of her life, also became the inspiration for her future career plans.

Her freshman year of high school took an unexpected turn when what she thought was the flu ended in a visit to the emergency room.

“I just remember being really tired for a couple of months and having really bad headaches. By the time I was seen in the back, I didn’t know who I was, and I was speaking gibberish,” Messner said.

An emergency CT scan revealed she had a golf ball-sized mass between her brain and skull, and a blood draw confirmed the presence of cancer.

Messner was transferred to Doernbecher Hospital’s ICU, a children’s hospital in Portland, Oregon, where she received a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with an unusual presentation of a cancerous mass. The following day, she underwent emergency brain surgery, and two weeks later, she began her first of five rounds of chemotherapy.

“AML is a cancer of your blood,” Messner explained. “To kill the cancer, they must kill your immune system along with all your blood cells and platelets. I had to live in the hospital for a month to a month and a half for each round of treatment. It became my home away from home.”

Messner particularly struggled when her hair began falling out. It was a part of herself that made her feel beautiful, and its loss made her feel as though cancer was taking over, and she was losing her identity. At Doernbecher Hospital, Nurse Julie would visit every morning, afternoon, and night to brush Messner’s hair so she wouldn’t have to see it fall out. Julie also wore duct tape around her hands to collect the strands that fell onto Messner’s bed.

Spending so much time at the hospital, nurses were the people Messner interacted with the most. They began as strangers but became family by the end of her treatment. “They were the light in the darkness,” Messner said. The small, daily interactions Messner had with all the nurses, especially Nurse Julie, helped her recognize their impact, inspiring Messner to pursue a similar career.

Motivated by the nurses who helped her, Messner joined Gonzaga’s nursing program. During her time at Gonzaga, Messner benefited from the nursing program’s focus on experiential learning, which provided her with hands-on training through clinical placements. One memorable experience was her day in the specialty unit at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center, where she gained exposure to pediatric oncology and more intense medical cases.

“Being able to step into that environment in the nurse’s role, rather than as the patient, was super impactful in helping me realize what I wanted to pursue,” Messner explained. “It has always been my dream to be a pediatric oncology nurse. Having that day to experience a variety of patients, while having to process emotions and memories from that difficult time in my life and still being able to provide support for the patients, made me realize this is something I am capable of doing.”

As Messner approaches graduation in December, she hopes to pursue her dream of becoming a pediatric oncology nurse at Doernbecher Hospital, providing support to children facing challenges similar to her own and using her perspective to make the process easier for them.