Thanksgiving Means a Little More This Year in the Home of Kylie Arnold

Kylie Arnold is the type of softball player that loves to get her uniform dirty.

She enjoys diving for ground balls and sliding into a base, and with that type of playing style comes the expected bumps and bruises.

During a club tournament last year, she was hit by a pitch twice in the same weekend. Later she felt discomfort, but attributed the pain to the hit by pitches and the normal wear and tear from the way she plays the game.

“Early in the summer, I was hit with two pitches on my right side of my body, because I’m a left-handed hitter. And we thought that the pain was just coming from being hit.”

A trip to the orthopedic doctor showed no broken bones when an x-ray was taken. The suspected culprit was a muscle injury, and the suggested recovery was taking time away from the game.

Kylie joined a new club team, Finesse 16U-Zill, in the fall and her first practice with her new team marked her return to the diamond.

“And then I got back to softball on August 27th. I had my first Finesse practice, and I was diving and baserunning and doing all the drills. And then that day, it was like it just felt different. It was like a different pain.”

The pain persisted and following a sleepless night her mother Stacy took her to the emergency room for tests.

The next 48 hours were a blur for both Kylie and Stacy.

That day, August 28, changed her life forever. A computed tomography (CT) scan revealed a football-sized tumor in her kidney which required surgery the next day.

“I was super stressed and very emotional. It’s almost like every emotion that’s possible to have, you have it. Because I went into the hospital thinking it was just a muscle strain, but, oh wait, there’s this huge, abnormally large mass inside of me. In my brain I wasn’t processing a lot of it because it was all so much.

“I don’t know that I really realized I had cancer, I went into the next day thinking I have to get surgery to get this out.”

A five-hour surgery removed the Wilms tumor, but also required the removal of her kidney.

Days later, the enormity of what she was facing set in for Kylie.

“And then after the surgery, a couple days later, is when it really set in that, oh I have cancer and I have to go through chemo.”

All that was left to do was fight. And Kylie is doing that every day.

*****

At times it’s difficult to convey the character of a person through words, but for Kylie Arnold when she uttered those words to her family in the hospital it said everything.

It’s how she has tackled cancer and how she lives each day, which includes her chemotherapy treatments.

Cancer cells grow and multiply more quickly than most of the cells in the body and chemotherapy is a drug treatment that uses powerful chemicals to kill the cancer cells.

She has completed 11 of her 25 weeks of scheduled chemotherapy treatments.

“I’m on a six-week round where I go once a week. Vincristine doesn’t give me any side effects other than being tired. Doxorubicin makes me a bit more nauseous and that’s my hair loss week. And dactinomycin makes me nauseous for around four days. It’s not the worst that it could be, but just going from no medications to all of that, it just really changed how I’ve been energy wise too.”

Fighting cancer is a grueling process and Kylie has learned she is stronger than she ever believed.

“I just feel like I’m a lot stronger than I thought I was mentally. Softball is always more of a mental game because striking out or making an error, I would tend to get down on myself. But now that I’m going through chemo and going through this whole surgery where I have an 11-inch incision on my stomach I’m learning how strong I am mentally.

“For the first few weeks after surgery, I had zero independence. I needed help getting up off the couch, getting into bed and getting out of bed. Mentally that’s very hard, but I feel like I’ve just learned more about how to be mentally strong.”

While Kylie has demonstrated tremendous strength and courage during her fight, she also has leaned heavily on the support of her family and friends.

“I’ve learned that when you have friends and family, you realize that they’re always there for you. But you realize that even more when you can’t get up from the couch yourself or do anything for yourself. Like, they’ll do anything for you. And my friends have brought me care packages and people I don’t know have sent me multiple gifts and care packages. It’s just cool to see how everyone rallies behind you, even if they don’t know you that well. I just think that is powerful.”

While Kylie is focused on her fight with cancer, she never keeps the game of softball far from her mind.

“I love the atmosphere of it, just being with your team and I also just love the adrenaline I get from playing. I like the challenging aspect of it, where it’s never the same game every time you play because it’s always so different.”

Returning to the game with her friends at Gull Lake High School in Richland, Mich., is something that fuels her recovery process.

“I miss it so much because that’s my normal. Being able to go to softball practice, or just go to our high school field and hit some buckets of balls. But I’m starting to get back to it, which feels so nice to just get back to my normal. It’s just nice to finally get back to the normalcy of it.

“It’s one of the most significant factors in my recovery. Some of my friends are seniors, I want to play their senior season with them. And just being back in that atmosphere again, even if I can’t play, I want to still be there in the dugout.”

And when she does return to the field, Kylie aspires to continue her playing career in college.

I’m super thankful for my doctors & nurses that continue to help me through my cancer treatments. Taking it easy, but getting back to the sport I love! @finesse07zill pic.twitter.com/4A0JUN0ahI

— Kylie Arnold (@Kylie_A07) November 23, 2023

She is a highly skilled second base and utility player, having twice qualified for the USA Softball National Selection Event.

Known as The Pipeline to the Women’s National Team, the USA Softball High Performance Program (HPP) identifies a pool of athletes to train, compete and represent USA Softball through domestic and international competition.

Kylie advanced through the HPP identifier in Wixom, Mich., in 2022 and qualified for the National Selection Event in Mesquite, Texas.

She advanced through the HPP identifier again in 2023 and was chosen to advance to the National Selection Event in Vero Beach, Fla., but cancer precluded her from being able to participate.

A setback for sure, but Kylie will continue to choose how she responds.

*****

When the doctor came into the ER room and delivered the news to Stacy Arnold that her only daughter had cancer it was a surreal moment.

“The doctors came in kind of wide-eyed, I’ll never forget the eyes, and it felt like a dump truck backed up to our ER room and just kind of dumped all this information. And it went so fast, and it was mind boggling how quickly it all transpired.”

But when Kylie delivered her message of hope to her family on how she would respond to this news, Stacy and the rest of the Arnold family were empowered.

“And it is mind-boggling how strong she is. Hearing that in the hospital was incredible. It’s like, wow, you’re right. You didn’t have a choice, but you do have a choice now of how you deal with it. And it was a cool statement from her from the hospital bed. I think that set the tone for her recovery from that point on.”

The Arnold family provides, and receives, strength from this journey through Kylie.

“She’s been handling chemo like a champ, and it’s been amazing to watch her because as a parent you have a different perspective of how this might go.

“We have to take extra precautions. We can still go out, but we still wear masks because she just doesn’t have the power to fight infections. She was at the gym, and she was doing some cage work and some throwing with a couple of friends. She doesn’t like feeling weak.”

Stacy has been uplifted, as has Kylie, by the support they have received from family, friends, her church, her community and total strangers.

“She has had so much support. When we first got the diagnosis, I was overwhelmed and couldn’t remember who I had told what to, so I set up a CaringBridge page for her. Since then, she has gotten close to 4,000 visits. She’s just been surrounded with love, and it’s been amazing.”

Stacy, and the Arnold family, is step by step with Kylie in her recovery.

“It’s hard to describe the feeling of your daughter having cancer. I know I was in shock when the initial news was delivered. Numb and emotionally devastated. This was our daughter. I remember vividly the ER doctor’s eyes when he walked into our room. His eyes were so big. I think he was also shocked. A tumor the size of a football isn’t something that they often discover. I don’t ever remember feeling mad or angry. I was a tad relieved to finally have an answer as to what was causing Kylie’s back pain all summer. From the initial news to Kylie being admitted to the hospital, to surgery the next day, it all happened so fast. I know we were all very emotional and trying to process the news individually and collectively as a family. We had just dropped our son off for his freshman year of college the week before and now our daughter, on what should have been her first day of her junior year in high school, had a cancerous tumor. It was all too much to process, and I remember hugging her, crying with her and asking the Lord to please protect her. I know the Lord was in control throughout this and He orchestrated the moving parts needed to protect Kylie and He put a wonderful surgeon, oncologist and nurses in our path to help her, to help us. Cancer was a devastating diagnosis to hear for us as parents. It was a gut punch. I still get so emotional about it especially when she was such an active, athletic, healthy teen. Her biggest worry was getting her wisdom teeth removed this coming spring and now, she had to endure a five-hour surgery to remove the tumor and her right kidney. She was left with an 11-inch vertical scar on her abdomen. Kylie’s courage and bravery was evident when she said that she wasn’t given a choice in all of this however she is choosing how to manage it and trying to put her energy into healing and knowing she’s going to beat this. I am in awe of her strength. We have so much support and so many prayer warriors lifting Kylie up. I am truly grateful and overwhelmed in the best possible way. So many amazing friends, family and community have rallied around Kylie and our family and that has been a key component in her recovery, our recovery. We are truly blessed. God is so good, and we keep trusting Him and He keeps answering our prayers.”

*****

For those interested in sharing a message of hope and support to Kylie please visit her CaringBridge page.

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/kyliearnold19

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