North Carolina State University Athletics
Running the bases, cancer-free
2/11/2005 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Feb. 11, 2005
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH -- Jennifer Patterson was riding in the car, away without permission from her hospital room at Stanford University, sneaking out for a Jamba Juice smoothie with her best friend.
Patterson was still weak and dehydrated from five straight days of chemotherapy treatments, while on summer break from NC State, and she needed something other than chicken broth, Gatorade or a juice pop.
That's when she saw the softball field.
"I just wanted to go out and run the bases," said the sophomore catcher on the Wolfpack's fledgling softball team. "I just wanted to be on the field."
It was a simple municipal field, just like the dozens Patterson had played on growing up in California, and she longed just to feel the dirt under her shoes. But she wasn't supposed to be off hospital grounds, let alone running the bases. Besides, there was a soccer game going on in the outfield.
. "I just pictured myself out there doing all the drills we usually do,'' Patterson said.
At the end of last season, Patterson couldn't get rid of a sinus infection. She had suffered some abdominal pains throughout the season - the first for NC State's softball program - but she wasn't going to let those affect her freshman season, in which she was a key contributor as a part-time starting catcher and frequent designated hitter.
"I think she did well playing for us, but you could tell the entire season that something was bothering her,'' said Wolfpack coach Lisa Navas, whose team hosts the Triangle Classic at Walnut Creek, beginning with a 3:30 game on Friday against UNC-Greensboro. "We just didn't know what."
But as the sinus infection lingered, and the treatments from the team trainers continued to be ineffective, Patterson eventually went to the Student Health Center. During an examination, the doctor said, "Something isn't right." Not exactly the words that a college freshman living 2,500 miles away from her family wants to hear.
Patterson immediately went to Rex Hospital, where doctors discovered ovarian dysgerminoma, a rare form of germ-cell cancer that strikes only young women in their teens and early 20s. On May 10, while her teammates were preparing for the ACC Tournament in Tallahassee, Fla., Patterson had surgery at UNC Hospitals to remove a cantaloupe-sized malignant tumor from her stomach.
After spending a week in the hospital at Chapel Hill and two weeks with teammate Lee Hasper in Raleigh, Patterson returned home to Salinas, Calif., where she began a summer-long regimen of chemotherapy at Stanford University, about an hour-and-a-half north of her hometown.
She would spend a week in the hospital getting chemotherapy for another small tumor near her heart, then she would go home for two weeks to be with her family. She completed the 10-week program in time to return to school last fall.
It was a rugged summer. The chemotherapy poisons left her weak and dehydrated. One of the drugs caused excruciating pains in her joints, starting in her hips and shooting straight up her back. It was worse - times 10 - than catching a doubleheader in the North Carolina heat. There were endless days of nausea and vomiting, and her hair fell out from the treatments.
"It was hard at times,'' Patterson said, with typical understatement.
She didn't much want to talk about her situation. She waited a week after her diagnosis before telling her teammates. She told them she was sorry she wouldn't be able to be there for them during the ACC Tournament.
But they became her away-from-home support system. They came to visit her at UNC immediately after her surgery. They sent her pictures from the tournament in Florida. She followed their games on SportsTracker.
Over the summer, the Wolfpack coaching staff flew to California to spend some time with her, and teammates Jennifer Chamberlain, who lives in San Mateo, Calif., and twins Miranda and Shaina Ervin, who were playing in a West Coast summer league, came to visit, in hopes of lifting Patterson's spirits.
The combination of surgery and chemo has apparently worked. Patterson's doctors say she is cancer-free, though she goes back for check-ups every three months. But the long-term prognosis for her treatable form of ovarian cancer is very good, with a 90 percent survival rate according to American Cancer Society statistics.
When Patterson returned to Raleigh, there was some talk of redshirting her to allow her to regain strength and lung capacity. Patterson didn't want to do it. Softball has always been her life, and she didn't want to spend anymore time away from it.
"A lot of people say they need sports for different reasons," Navas said. "She needs softball, she needs us around, because I think we are sort of her stability.
"She also brings a strength and confidence to the team. She works hard. The kids admire her for that."
Last weekend, in Starkville, Miss., Patterson started two games for the Wolfpack at catcher. She handled the starting pitchers with her usual aplomb. In the third inning against Mississippi Valley State, she singled up the middle to drive in two runs. She got to run the bases again.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
