Softball’s On-Field Inspiration
Kelsey Waters On Feb. 16, the Stetson softball team donned their pink jerseys to help raise awareness for those fighting cancer. While there were a number of survivors in the stands, there was one on the field, serving as an inspiration for all of those touched by the deadly disease. “I actually was so in shock that I don’t remember what my first thoughts were,” said Hatter freshman Kelsey Waters, who recalled the first moments after finding out she had cancer. “It didn’t really register until the drive back home when I looked in the rearview mirror and saw my dad crying in the front seat.” Waters, a Hawthorne, Fla., native, made that long drive back home in September 2011, in what was the beginning of her junior year of high school. Her diagnosis was papillary thyroid cancer, a growth on the thyroid gland in Waters’ throat. “I was at a softball tournament in Sarasota, and I started running a fever and then became really pale,” Waters remembered of her initial symptoms. “Then when I got back home, I had a super-sore throat, and I thought it was strep, but after going to the doctor’s office to check it out, they thought it was meningitis.” After some rigorous tests and an eventual ultrasound, Waters was given the news that no 16-year-old athlete would expect.
“I remember my mom sitting behind me on the table, and she just started rubbing my back,” Waters said. “My mom told me that I turned around (after hearing the news) and said, ‘I don’t know why this is happening, but God has a reason.’” With that reason still yet unknown, Waters and her family braced for what lay ahead, which included frequent hospital visits in the months to come. “The cancer was sitting on top of my thyroid in a nodule-type form,” she explained of her condition. “In my heart and in my gut though, I knew for a 100-percent fact that I was going to be OK. I can’t describe it, but I just knew I was going to be fine.” With a positive attitude and a loving and supportive family by her side, Waters went in for surgery the next month so she could begin taking her first steps on the road to recovery. “I did not know this until after the surgery, but there was no way to tell where the cancer had spread, so it was all in the dark until the doctors went in and looked at my thyroid,” Waters recalled of her situation. “It could have spread into my voice box, throat or my lymph nodes, and there was a chance it could have even made it into my bloodstream.” Fortunately for Waters, the doctors found that the cancer was contained to
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just the thyroid, and she knew she would be able to make a full recovery. Still, the process took a toll on not just the 16-yearold patient, but those who cared for her. “Seeing how bad all of this tore up my parents and my friends, I realized that I needed to be strong for them,” Waters said. During her recovery, that strength was fed by the love and support of not just her immediate family, but by her second family. Members of the Keystone Heights High School softball team as well as her travelball club came out in full force to show their support and appreciation for their battling teammate. “A lot of donations had come in from my friends to help pay for gas, food and medical treatments,” an appreciative Waters remembered. “My travel-ball team made T-shirts, stickers and cancer bows with my number on it. They were my second family, and they helped so much, just by being there, supporting me and telling me that it was going to be OK.” By February Waters was feeling well enough to get back on the field and prepare for the season ahead. Even though her recovery was a relatively short one, that didn’t mean it was without significant side effects. “It was just so tiring because of the process that I had to go through, which included going on a special diet for radiation treatment,” she explained. “After the radiation, I was able to start trying medicines which would replace the hormones that my thyroid would make. That’s where it became interesting, because if you are on too low of a dose you become very lethargic, and if you are on too high of a dose, you will be super hyper.” Despite everything she had gone through that season, Waters was healthy enough, but, more importantly, strong enough to contribute to her team in a big way. The then junior batted .549 and was named a Junior Class All-American en route to helping lead her Keystone Heights team to the state semifinals later that season. Fast-forward two years, and Waters has traded in her high school’s red, white and blue uniforms for that of Stetson’s green and white threads, knowing she has beaten the odds and in the process proved to herself what she is capable of.
April-May 2014