Girl’s diagnosis brings team even closer

By Ed Runyan

‘A SHOT FROM THE DARKNESS’

News of the 10-year-old’s cancer was devastating to the ‘big old family.’

LIBERTY — The Cortland-based Valley Extreme 10-under travel softball team felt great Tuesday morning after winning a close game in the PONY national softball tournament.

But team players and families since May have faced a whole range of other emotions — shock, sadness and compassion — as they together coped with news that player Kaylee Neumeister has brain cancer.

Kaylee, 10, of Cortland, didn’t play Tuesday as her team edged another local team, Valley Sting, 5-3. But the soon-to-be Cortland Elementary fifth-grader was with her team, wearing her No. 14 jersey and participating in the game from the dugout.

She hasn’t been able to play since late May, when some fairly ordinary symptoms such as headaches and vomiting turned to double vision and then a trip to the hospital, where doctors found a tumor called an ependymoma. Doctors believe that operating to remove the tumor would not be wise, said Kaylee’s mother, Diane. Treatment options are still being considered.

For her father, Lance, the team coach, the diagnosis May 28 at University Hospitals appeared like a shot from the darkness.

“The head nurse told me they had found a mass in her brain. That word did not register,” he said Tuesday after the PONY tournament game, holding Kaylee on his lap.

“I said ‘mouse?’ And she said, ‘No. Mass.’

“You see it in movies all the time, but it happens,” he said. “I did not understand that word. They said she has a mass in her brain. And I said you have got to be kidding.”

Even now, she looks the same as ever, he said.

The news was similarly devastating for the parents of her teammates, who heard about it the next day.

“When we learned about it, we all just cried and cried,” said Tracy Ricci of Champion, whose daughter Amber plays on the team.

“She was there yesterday, and she was fine then,” Ricci said. “It just shows how fragile life is.”

Though the Riccis had only joined the team last August after a tryout, it didn’t take long for them to form a strong bond with the other families.

Even the geographical differences melted away, as girls from Canfield, Cortland, Newton Falls, Bristol and Champion got acquainted.

“This is a big old family,” Ricci said. “You don’t get this with your own family, let alone with a softball team from all over the county.”

Games and practices in the fall, weekly practices throughout the winter, and a full schedule of games starting in the spring brought the team together.

“You leave your kids with them [other parents] and they leave them with you, so you form a lot of attachments very quickly,” Ricci said.

For Lisa Casassa of Cortland, whose twins Taylor and Carly play on the team, learning about Kaylee’s illness made her take stock of her feelings about her softball friends.

“It makes you step back and see what’s important, and you just want to be there to support them because I just can’t imagine going through that,” she said, as she wrapped her arms comfortably around Taylor.

“It helps. Just being supportive,” she added. “We’re supporting them, and we’re supporting each other.”

The parents created cash collection points at the Liberty and Bazetta PONY tournament locations and are organizing a raffle extending through the second week of the PONY tournament next week and 5K running event to be in Cort-land later.

As word has spread about Kaylee’s tumor, even opposing teams have given Kaylee gifts.

A Champion-based team called Chain Reaction wore sweat bands with Kaylee’s number on them last month at a tournament in Champion, and teams from Pittsburgh and other places have given gift baskets to Kaylee filled with items she can enjoy, like video games.

Cash donations to the family have come from Valley Extreme teams in the older age groups, the Optimist Club of Bazetta-Cort-land, co-workers at Lance and Diane Neumeister’s jobs, and many others.

The money is helping with the thousands of dollars’ worth of medical co-pays, lost work, medicines and drives back and forth to Cleveland for treatment.

The helicopter ride to Cleveland cost $16,000, $11,000 of which was covered by insurance.

A day after she arrived in Cleveland, doctors performed surgery to relieve the pressure on her brain that was causing the double vision and headaches. Since then, they have installed a “mediport” in her chest that is used to deliver medicines, treatments or take blood.

Kaylee has kept a positive attitude throughout the early stages of her treatment, her parents say. She hasn’t experienced a lot of pain, despite the surgery and other procedures, Kaylee said. She can still swim and play with her friends but can’t play sports such as softball because of the need to protect the mediport from damage.

She hopes to return to school this fall, probably a couple of weeks late, depending on how she is doing after her initial weeks of radiation and chemotherapy treatments are complete.

runyan@vindy.com