Nicole Richards faces adversity with strength of a champion

When Nicole Richards saw an ad on Facebook last year from Susan G. Komen’s Indianapolis affiliate looking for models for its Project Pink Fashion Show, the 33-year-old breast cancer survivor wanted in.

There was just one thing she had to get OK'd first.

“I reached out to the person in charge and said, ‘I’m in a wheelchair. Is that gonna be a problem with the runway or anything?’ And she said no, she thought it was great,” Richards said.

That roll down the runway in 2014 was scary for the Indy native, yet also pulsed with a vague familiarity for the woman who’d spent her adolescence performing in gymnastics competitions nationwide. Richards had trained with famed gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi as a child. For years, she’d spent hours each day practicing. She’d even been awarded a full scholarship to be part of the Ball State University gymnastics team.

That was before the car accident that took it all away.

Fellow gymnast Carrie Bennett was in the car with Richards that day in February 2000; they’d driven to Muncie to meet their new coaches and teammates. They were only a few minutes into the drive home when they found themselves in a multiple-car pileup on Ind. 332 due to icy roads. Bennett was in the front passenger seat; Richards was sitting behind the driver.

“After we got hit, I turned around and I didn’t see (Nicole),” Bennett said. Richards was wearing her seatbelt, but the force of the crash caused whiplash so severe it broke her neck. Bennett tried to keep her friend calm as she lay across the back seat waiting for help to arrive. The panic in Richards’s voice was rising as she told her friends she couldn’t move.

Within a week, the 17-year-old had two plates, 10 screws and a bunch of wires in her neck to fuse the vertebrae, and was settled in a live-in rehabilitation facility in Chicago, re-learning how to do just about everything, including find her place in the world.

“That’s when I found out I would never walk again. I would be in a wheelchair every day. I was a senior in high school, and all my friends were getting ready for spring break and college and summer,” she said. “That was really, really, really hard.”

But Richards does “hard,” and she does it well.

Though Ball State withdrew its scholarship offer, she still enrolled the following year, earning a journalism degree and an honorary spot on the gymnastics team.

“Even though I couldn’t do the gymnastics, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be just being there, because they still made me feel like I was part of the team,” she said of teammates like Bennett. “The athletic director still gave me a letter jacket and all the gymnastics gear.”

She got a job out of college as a human resources specialist at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service in Indianapolis, a position she’s held for 10 years. In 2005, she earned her license to drive a specially equipped van with the brake and gas on a joystick in her left hand. In 2006, she took another step toward independence when she received a fully accessible house on the Southside, thanks to the Samantha’s House foundation.

And then, in 2013, came the crushing diagnosis: A cancerous tumor in her left breast that had spread to her lymph nodes. She was 31, happy and settled, attending Colts games and Britney Spears concerts in her free time, and judging high school gymnastics on the side.

“I was in a lot of shock. I didn’t know where it came from, why now, I’ve already been through so much. All those thoughts went through my head. But after about an hour of that — I maybe shed a couple of tears — I was just ready to fight it,” she said. “Even waiting the weekend was hard. I wanted a plan that day.”

The plan included 18 weeks of debilitating chemotherapy and a total left-side mastectomy in February 2014, followed by 35 consecutive weekdays of radiation and taking another chemo drug for a year.

“My paralysis really made the cancer diagnosis that much harder. I don’t know what I expected it to be, but it was harder and worse than I could have ever expected,” she said. Even the relatively simple radiation therapy treatment was difficult for Richards.

“The radiation that would normally take about 10 minutes for a regular cancer patient ended up taking 45 minutes to get me out of my chair, onto the table, line me all up, get me undressed, all the things I couldn’t do myself,” she said. “My oncologist, Dr. Bryan Schneider at IU Simon Cancer Center, was great; this was new to him also, he had never had a quadriplegic have breast cancer, so we were kind of all learning together.”

Richards’ mother, Donna Coffey, became her daughter’s full-time nurse and chauffeur, just as she’d done so many times before.

“She’s a beautiful girl who’s lived 15 years without her legs. She can do anything,” said Coffey of her daughter’s determination and stubbornness. “She’s Nicole. Nicole is just very strong.”

Richards had reconstruction surgery in February, but her body rejected the implant. So it was removed, and in August surgeons performed a 10-hour tissue swap procedure, during which a big chunk of muscle tissue from her left thigh was used to create a breast.

To recover she was placed on strict bed rest and is now working part-time from home when possible and accepting the generosity of her co-workers’ donated vacation time on the days she’s too sick to work. Richards credits her faith along with the endless support of her mother, friends and other family members, including sister Alli Juskevice and brother Danny Richards, with her ability to overcome all that she has.

And all that training as a kid in the gym helped, too.

“With gymnastics, you’re gonna have bad days at practice, and you have to put it in the back of your mind and start fresh the next day. Even in competition, every now and then something’s gonna go wrong. You’re gonna fall off the balance beam. It’s upsetting if you’re putting in all the work, but at the same time, it’s human. Everyone has bad days, and you just gotta put it behind you and move on,” she said. “I think learning that as a young gymnast and applying it in my adult life, that’s what’s gotten me through.”

All Month: Brighton Collectibles — Power of Pink

The Fashion Mall at Keystone

This year $10 from the sale of every bracelet from the Keystone at the Crossing Brighton Collectibles will go to the Susan G Komen in Central Indiana. The bracelet will be available until supplies run out or Oct. 31. Pre-sales are always welcome; call (317) 508-0912 to reserve a bracelet.

Oct. 24: Glitz & Glamour

The Glitz & Glamour charity event from 2 to 5 p.m. will raise money for Carrie's Touch, a breast cancer awareness organization whose president is Indianapolis native Tammy Denyse. The event will include a runway show hosted by makeup artist and talk show host Sharon Brown. There will be an auction, food and raffles. (317) 514-0339

Oct. 30: Indy Fuel Pink in the Rink

Susan G. Komen will partner with Indy Fuel for the second annual Pink in the Rink hockey game Oct. 30 to help fuel the fight against breast cancer in our community. All proceeds from tickets purchased through the Susan G. Komen ticket link will return to Komen Central Indiana to fund breast health services and breast cancer research.