A profile of courage

When cancer survivor April Kimes fell due to a hard hit in a Greenville Christian basketball game in November 2004, little did she know that her life would never be the same again.


Kimes, now 16, describes how that late fall night went when she played the sport she loves the last time.

“My journey to St. Jude began way before I realized. I was very into basketball and was playing in a tournament at my school one night in November,” she recalled. “The game was going great, we were winning when in the fourth quarter I got knocked down and I landed on my lower back. I finished the game and my coach asked me if I was okay. I just shook it off and said, ‘Yes sir, I think I'll make it.'

“The pain quickly worsened and by the time I got ready to leave, I could barely get into the car.” Kimes continued. “Within the next week or two the pain was constant and I could barely walk. I finally told my parents that something was wrong and that I could not take the pain much longer.”

Following a local MRI and being assigned stretching exercises by a local physician, Kimes was referred to a Memphis pediatric neurologist and originally diagnosed with Degenerative Disc Disease, which her father Curtis has as well. She was prescribed three months of physical therapy back home.

“I started my physical therapy right away hoping that would do the trick and started getting me ready for the next season. He (the pediatric neurologist) wanted to see me at the end of my therapy for a check up.”


However while going through physical therapy, Kimes noticed a small, dime-size knot on her upper back near her shoulder blade and pointed it out to her therapist.

“She looked at it and knew it had to be just a knotted up muscle from lifting weights at therapy.

“So I blew it off. I did not really think much about it after that.”

Kimes ignored it until one day that she noticed the dime-sized knot had increased to about a quarter-size and her therapist suggested she bring the knot to the neurologist's attention in Memphis. Kimes did just that and the doctor ordered another MRI.

“About a month later I once again went back to Memphis and he (the physician) said it was a tumor, but was almost 100 percent sure that it was benign. He had no reason at all to believe anything else; I had experienced no symptoms whatsoever,” Kimes said.

The neurologist gave Kimes three different options; she could leave the knot as is, biopsy the lesion or remove it all together.


“I was all for leaving it there,” quipped Kimes. "But my mom strongly suggested it be removed. The reason I was so against having it removed is simply because I cannot stand needles, and not only were they going to stick me, they were going to cut me.”

Kimes started to come up with any reason she could think of not to have to procedure done.

“My summer was beginning and I had (basketball) camps to go to and trips to go on,” Kimes recalled. “My doctor chimed in and said, ‘O.K. April, we'll do it after you're finished with all your summer activities.'”

Kimes finally gave in and consented to surgery.

“I think I cried the entire way to the mall," said the now in incoming junior in high school.

Kimes went on with her summer before the procedure set for July 15, 2005. In June, she attended basketball camps in Indianola and at Copiah-Lincoln Community College. She also went to a church camp on the Gulf Coast. In July, Kimes, also a cheerleader, went to cheerleading camp before her surgery.

What was originally supposed to be an outpatient procedure turned into an overnight stay at LeBoneur Children's Hospital in Memphis for Kimes, due to her IV infiltrating.

“The morning after my surgery, my doctor was excited about me going home and about how well I did,” recalled Kimes. “All of that excitement went away when he walked into my room about 9:30 and said, ‘Well you all are ready to go home, but have a seat. I need to share some information I just received.'

“So I got back in my bed and Dr. Boop said, ‘The pathology report came back and the lesion from her back was not benign.' So I'm sitting there, not knowing what all these terms mean, and I look over at my daddy and he's crying. I was like O.K. so why are ya'll crying?

“Then it set in, I had cancer. I was overwhelmed with emotion and disbelief.”

Kimes was then referred to and registered with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital by the following week.

Kimes form of cancer is known as Mesenchymal chondrosacoma, or as she says in simpler terms “cancer of the cartilage.”

Mesenchymal chondrosacoma is an extremely rare cancer and is found in one in three million patients and most commonly found in African-American males over the age of 50.

“This type of cancer is known to be very aggressive and grows rather quickly,” said Kimes. “Although my doctors were going by the rare research that has been documented over the years, they still weren't sure as to what was going to happen with my case.”

When Kimes arrived at St. Jude she was assigned an entire team of specialists just for her. Her team consisted of an oncologist, who is in charge of the group, a “Fellow,” an understudy to an oncologist, a radiation oncologist, several life specialists, who kept her occupied, a social worker, a chaplain and a complete surgery team, that removed her tumor bed on July 29, 2005.

“Wow, I felt pretty special to have a whole team studying me,” quipped Kimes.

While at St. Jude, Kimes and her family often stayed at the Grizzlies House, which is for patients who stay from one to seven days.

Kimes enjoyed her stay in the house, especially with her love of basketball.

“Every floor in the Grizzlies House is like a basketball floor,” said Kimes. “They even have a half court behind the building, the tables have basketballs on them and they have pictures of all the players. I think the neatest thing about it is the floors are hard-wood courts.”

The Grizzlies House is a charitable arm of the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies. The franchise was recently rewarded the Steve Patterson Sports Philanthropy Award for all it's given back to the Memphis community. The organization donated $5 million to St. Jude for the construction of the Grizzlies House.

The Steve Patterson Award is given annually to a professional sports team who demonstrates excellence and leadership in community and national philanthropy.

Kimes said her illness has matured her.

“It makes you grow up fast, but sometimes I don't like it because I'm in high school and I want to be a teenage girl,” said Kimes. “I actually understand what life is and the real meaning of life.”

Kimes' parents also appreciate the members of their church, Emmanuel Baptist, for their assistance in helping bring Kimes to Memphis for her daily treatments during the process.

“To go back and forth every day, that's a lot of time off of work for her mother (Ellen) and I to take off our jobs, and 40 members from the church volunteered to help take her back and forth from Memphis on a daily basis and we actually used 19 of them,” Curtis Kimes, April's father, said.

Kimes attended school at GCS for three to four hours each day before having to travel to Memphis for a treatment that only took a matter of minutes. She then headed back to Greenville for homework and school work.

Because of her treatments and condition, Kimes cannot play basketball again and that has been extremely difficult for her.

“It's hard sitting on the sidelines, it really is sometimes,” said Kimes. “I sit there and know what to do and I want to get out there and do it and the year I had to set on the bench was especially hard."

Kimes is currently in remission and has not received an average in school of lower than a 92, which came during the times she was receiving the daily treatments.

Kimes is very appreciative of everyone at St. Jude for all they have done for her and other children.

“St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is a place of hope and people who give donations keep that hope alive,” Kimes said. “I am blessed to be part of a generation who has the opportunity of a second chance. Thanks to St. Jude and people giving donations we have that second chance now. The rates for survival of childhood cancer has sky rocketed thanks to what St. Jude does and the fact that they do find cures and save children!”
source:www.ddtonline.com