Meghan's Story
[Music]
Meghan Kinney: I love synchronized swimming.
It's -- I call it synchro for short, but it's my passion, it's what I've done since I was
10 years old and then I love that feeling of being a part of something like bigger than
yourself and competing and...
Anne Kinney: And she wants to go to extra practice, so she'd stay in the pool afterwards.
Those are the kinds of kids that you don't make those.
They just are born that way.
Meghan Kinney: I think when I was probably like 14, that's when I made my first national
team.
I had already experienced being the alternate in the last Olympics.
Being in the last team that I was -- the national team that I was just on, I was the duet so
that's the top in the country.
The 2012 Olympics was my ultimate goal.
Last June, we were in Spain and I was just had a duet competition and I noticed my knee
was just sore.
They sat me down with a bunch of the doctors and they were very serious.
And they said, "We found a tumor in your knee."
It was a really, really hard moment, but I remember thinking like not really even like
worrying about synchro at that point.
It was more just like my life and...
Nick Yeager: Meghan has osteosarcoma, that's still fairly rare.
Meghan's 21 years old and she is getting treated at Children's because osteosarcoma is generally
a pediatric type of cancer.
Meghan Kinney: So basically, what they did was take out my tumor, which was right here.
They took out about this much of my tibia and then they drilled a rod into my tibia
bone right here.
And then they drilled another one up here into my femur and then they did a full knee
replacement.
Nick Yeager: This is OK.
Unfortunately, osteosarcoma has a fairly significant rate of recurrence, so we will complete a
full course of chemo to give her every opportunity to not have that happen.
Meghan Kinney: The chemo that I'm getting for the next seven months is just to make
sure that nothing would reoccur or come back.
I think I would have a completely different experience if I wasn't at this hospital with
these people.
And as hard as it's been, they've made it so much easier.
Nick Yeager: What drives me, what drives all of us here is working with the kids and the
kids themselves, you get inspired on a daily basis.
You're working with families that are fighting so hard and fighting so hard for often long
periods of time.
You know it's not always easy certainly.
Anne Kinney: Every one of her nurses, every one of the PCAs, every single person is just
so wonderful and smiling and...
Meghan Kinney: Like they become like just part of my life.
There's a different vibe walking into Children's Hospital.
I feel like in a way that synchro prepared me for this.
I compare a lot and I'm like, "Oh, if I can get through a 12-hour practice in the sun
in the middle of summer, like I can get through this.
I can get through a day of chemo."
And the days are long and I'm really thankful that I've had synchronized swimming to help
me get through cancer.
Anne Kinney: I'm really proud of her.
Meghan Kinney: It hurts to stretch it but I just have to do it because it's the only
way of getting it back to normal.
I don't know if I can ever be at the same level that I was.
Anne Kinney: She's made so much progress and her leg looks great.
I think she's going to be able to get back in the water.
What do you think, in a week or so?
Meghan Kinney: A week or so.
Anne Kinney: Uh-huh.
Meghan Kinney: And I want to try it again and everything I want to see what I can do.
I mean, why not?
I mean, you put your mind to it and you can do whatever you -- if you work hard, you can
do amazing things.
It's still going to be hard to like watch the Olympics and be like I could have been
there, that could have been like my experience, but there's more to life than just that one
moment.
And I feel like I've had so many of those moments before.
Anne Kinney: You know, in her sport she was a big role model but at the same time, I think
she's touched more people through this.
Having the osteosarcoma, it's given her an opportunity to maybe have been -- to have
touched more people than it would have ever than not.
So in a way, maybe this is the path.
Meghan Kinney: This is my Olympics.
Anne Kinney: This is her Olympics, you know.
Meghan Kinney: This is my...yeah.
Maybe it's just a different way of looking at it.