Profile for Samantha Mays

samanthaariah Surfer participant

• Colonial Heights, Virginia

As a child growing up, I was always very active; from Tae Kwon Do, basketball, to softball, I was always doing something. Softball was my passion, I was a pitcher. At 13 my knee began hurting and then it would just go away. The next august I felt a pin needle behind my knee and just brushed it off. The pain began getting worse every night and I went to my doctor and he said I just had pulled a muscle. I rested two weeks and it wasn't any better, so he referred me to an Orthopedic doctor. I was diagnosed with growing pains, and the treatment was to rub it and take some tylenol. Ten months of this went on, and I even went to the emergency room, but nothing new was said about my condition. One day I was taking a bath and my foot felt burnt, my mom immediately made an appointment with my doctor. Upon arriving there he finally suggested that I get an MRI. The MRI technician told us we would hear something on Monday, (It was Friday) but my mom got a call a couple hours later from my doctor. He found a (how ironic) softball sized tumor in my right pelvic area. From there I traveled to UVA to get a biopsy. They told me I had a bone cancer known as Ewing's Sarcoma. I went through ten months of chemo, six weeks of radiation, and countless surgeries and sicknesses. Almost 3 years later and I am a happy healthy 18 year old!