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| Basketball player rebounds from cancer |
By: Pat Beck
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Posted: Sunday, January 24, 2010 2:50 pm
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In the Dec. 11 game against Fairmont, St. Peter junior Kate Siebels (left) urges on her teammates two weeks after finishing chemotherapy for Non-Hodkins Lymphoma. Siebels is hoping to play again this season, possibly in the Thursday, Feb. 4 game at Gustav
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She’s bald. She’s lost weight, strength, speed and endurance. But St. Peter three-sport athlete Kate Siebels has a positive attitude and is recovering nicely from Non-Hodkins Lymphoma and could play her first basketball game of the season Thursday, Feb. 4 in the Coaches vs. Cancer fundraising event at Gustavus Adolphus College.
Diagnosed with cancer in Aug. 10, Siebels underwent 96 hours of chemotherapy from Aug. 11 to Nov. 28 in six, six day trips every three weeks to St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester. She received a clean bill of health in early December.
Since Jan. 4, she has been training five days a week with Gustavus Adolphus College star basketball player Bri Radke who is studying to be a physical therapist. The 12-week program includes shooting basketballs.
Daughter of Mark and Lorie Siebels, Kate also is a swimmer but didn’t get a chance to compete this fall and is undecided about swimming next season.
But she is looking forward to patrolling centerfield again for the Saints varsity softball team this spring.
Her teammates support her by wearing the Lymphoma color, lime green, shoelaces. Siebel’s cancer was a tumor in her lymph nodes in her chest. The chemotherapy killed all the cancer, so she didn’t need surgery.
“The chemo attacks all of your good cells, so I felt really good in the hospital as I got chemo,” Siebels said. “But then the first couple of weeks after chemo was pretty hard, but I bounced back the third week. Then I had to go back again. It’s just that cycle.
“Physically I was really weak. I’d be in bed for six days, so then I’d come out of the hospital and my legs would be pretty sore. I felt tired all the time.”
Siebels could walk but not run or lift weights. “I had a pretty significant blood clot right when I was diagnosed and they had to put a portacath in to get the chemo in. Since I had the blood clot, all they said I could do was walk. So I wasn’t able to run, lift or do anything to try and maintain some of my weight and strength because of the blood clot.”
She lost her blonde hair in the second week of chemo. “You don’t appreciate it until it’s gone,” Siebels said. “I never was one that was very big on my hair. I wouldn’t spend hours on it, but that was probably one of the hardest things. It’s started to grow back a little bit. I’m getting some fuzz back, but we don’t know how long it will take.”
At 5 feet, 9 inches tall and 135 pounds before the onset, Siebels already was already slim. After chemo, she was down to 108.
“I didn’t have much to lose to begin with,” she said. “I’ve always been pretty slender, so losing 25 was pretty significant. I had to go out and buy new jeans and new clothes because everything was falling off. The chemo takes its toll on your body ”
Now she’s almost 130, nearly back to her normal weight.
She’s bounced back by working out, “and I’ve been eating a ton.”
After four months without her usual active life, Siebels started working out after the Christmas break Jan. 1 after the portacath was removed.
Prior to the sickness, Siebels said, “I was pretty strong. I held my own on the basketball court. I was strong. I wasn’t the fastest. But from having some muscles to not having any was pretty tough. Lifting a gallon of milk was strenuous when I was sick.”
Now she’s working out with 10-pound dumb bells in each hand.
Usually one of the first players off the bench last season, Siebels looked to be the sixth man this year. She hadn’t played basketball with the team yet as of Friday. “I’m still a little slow in both speed and endurance. I don’t know if I’d be able to run up and down the court with them. I’m hoping to by the end of the season to get out there and at least practice and dress in games.”
Siebels, a junior forward, goes to basketball practice every day and sits on the bench in games and gives pointers to her teammates. She also takes statistics during the game, marking where shots are taken.
She plans to play softball right off the bat. “I should be able to come back and play everything. I’ve gone down to the batting cages. I plan to be there for the first day of practice and on opening day. I’ll be out there in centerfield for the first game of the season.”
Siebels expects to be back to full strength. “I should make a full recovery. There’s nothing that I should not be able to do.”
Although she hasn’t been able to play basketball, Siebels said she still feels part of the team. “I don’t think I ever wasn’t part of the team, and I always knew I was going to come back. I’m not playing, so I don’t know everything that’s going through the girls’ heads. But it hasn’t been very different. I’m still here everyday. I still talk to all the girls about the game.”
Asked about all the support she’s received, Siebels said: “ It takes something horrible like this to see how much we’re loved by the community. I couldn’t ask for anything more. The community has been awesome.
“The benefit put on Dec. 12 was amazing. I wasn’t expecting that many people. Everybody that I knew was there or sent a card or sent something. At school, the teachers have been wonderful and very accommodating. I was able to keep up with everything. I received my homework before I left and did my homework down at Mayo.”
A video on Kate Siebels can be seen at stpeterherald.com
Pat Beck can be reached at pbeck@stpeterherald.com or (507) 931-8566.
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