SPORTS

A Thanksgiving blessing: Back on the field, playing through chemo

When he played, it was like he was breathing through a straw. Not a big straw. One of those tiny, constricted coffee straws. Cancer was the reason.

Dana Hunsinger Benbow
dana.benbow@indystar.com
Lacrosse player Cody Bevelhimer, 13 years old, outside his Zionsville home Thursday. Cody was diagnosed with lymphoma in June 2014, beginning chemo and steroids  immediately to shrink the mass. Now Cody is back on the field.

There was no turkey last Thanksgiving. No traveling to be with family. The Bevelhimers were prisoners in their Zionsville home.

Prisoners of cancer.

To be thankful last November — well, it took some digging to be thankful.

Cody Bevelhimer, 12, was in the middle of intense chemotherapy treatment for T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma. He spent most of his days in the basement playing video games to drown out the cancer, his balding head, missing friends — and his ban from the sport he loved.

Lacrosse, which Cody played year-round in club leagues and on his Zionsville Middle School team, was no longer allowed. In a 12-year-old boy's world, that almost was as bad as the diagnosis.

But then again, lacrosse was something to be thankful for, even if he wasn't getting to play anymore.

Had it not been for lacrosse, Cody might be dead. Doctors made that clear.

He might not be here this Thanksgiving, a 13-year-old with a head full of hair, making microwave macaroni and cheese, throwing balls to his Saint Berdoodle dog, Ellie. Still going through chemo — but a less intense chemo — and with a whole lot of hope.

***

A summer night lacrosse practice in June of 2014 was what led the Bevelhimers to a two-day nightmare that uncovered a cancerous mass on Cody's chest.

Cody had been having sore throats and some trouble breathing for about a month. His mom, Tracy, chalked it up to a cold that was making its way through the family.

But that night on the lacrosse field, Cody's older brother Bryan, a varsity player for Zionsville High School who was helping lead the practice, noticed this was no average cold.

Lacrosse player Cody Bevelhimer, center, is cancer-free now. Pictured with him are, from left, older brother Bryan; father  Joe; mom Tracy; and  sister Sydney outside their Zionsville home this month.

"He just couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe. When he was getting water, he couldn’t swallow," said Bryan, 17. "And I was like, 'All right, something’s wrong.' So I took him over to mom, and I was like, 'Go get him checked out. This is not right.'"

To this day, no one knows how Cody was breathing on the field, let alone running and playing lacrosse. Why he hadn't collapsed then and there, doctors still are flabbergasted.

Cody's chest X-rays showed his airway was so constricted from the mass, it was as if he were breathing through a coffee stirrer. One of those tiny, thin straws.

"Everybody who saw it said this is the most severe airway compression we've ever seen," said Heather Escoto, Cody's primary oncologist at Peyton Manning Children's Hospital. "And he played lacrosse yesterday? It was just amazing, really, that he was still alive."

***

Cody was in the car eating a Quarter Pounder with cheese and bacon from McDonald's. It was the day after that lacrosse practice, and he and his mom had just come from the doctor where they had done a mono test and chest X-rays.

As Cody was telling his mom how the burger just wasn't going down, how every time he tried to swallow, it felt like the burger was bouncing off something and coming back up, Tracy's phone rang.

An X-ray technician had seen the results and knew something was terribly wrong.

"They called me and said, 'You need to go to the ER immediately,'" said Tracy. "There was a large mediastinal mass in the neck and in the chest and that he only had a 2 millimeter space left in the trachea."

Had he gone down on the lacrosse field the night before, it would have been tragic.

"We probably would have lost him, because they wouldn’t have known why he couldn’t breathe," Tracy said. "And if they had tried to put a tracheal (tube) in, the mass was lower than where they would have put it, and they still wouldn't have been able to get air to him."

It was then Cody started getting worried. A mass? Going straight to the ER? It got worse.

"Then, they told me 'You have lymphoma,' and I said ‘Oh thank goodness. It’s not cancer,’" Cody said. "And then my mom goes, 'Cody, it is cancer.'"

Cody cried.

***

Back home, Bryan was upstairs in a daze.

"Well, I couldn’t even tell you how I felt when I found out," he said. "I mean, I’d wish it was me but…"

It wasn't him. It was his baby brother.

Cody's sister, 16-year-old Sydney, was in the basement.

"I remember just bawling," she said. "I was bawling so hard but trying to be quiet because I didn't want anyone to hear me."

Cody's dad, Joe, was headed to Fort Wayne for a two-day business trip. When he got the call from Tracy, it all became a blur. When he told his boss, who was with him, the boss said to drop him off at a car rental place and go home to Cody.

As for Tracy, she had to stay positive.

Cody Bevelhimer, 13, from Zionsville, does a celebratory dance with Brian Sutton, left, and Tevin Lake, right, after running a drill at the St. Vincent Sports Performance center, earlier this year.

"Because I was the one with Cody," she said. "I think I would've dropped to my knees and lost it, but I knew I couldn't."

In the hospital room with Cody and with her own mother at her side, Tracy was given a binder with information on lymphoma, chemo, blood counts.

It was overwhelming.

She ran out of the room and down the hall and sobbed.

"You're just thinking worst-case scenario," she said. "What would I do if I ever lost him?"

***

Doctors immediately started Cody on steroids to shrink the mass and on chemotherapy — eight months of intense chemotherapy. And that's where he was last Thanksgiving. Still going in every few days for treatment. No lacrosse. No friends over at his house.

This Thanksgiving, the mass has vanished. None of the cancer had spread to his blood, so he's considered to be in remission. He's wearing a port and on a maintenance program receiving chemo once a month.

He will continue that until next September. That's his best chance at long-term survival with no recurrence of the cancer.

Cody is back playing lacrosse, with an extra pad to protect the port that is embedded in his chest.

The Bevelhimers will travel this week to eat turkey at Tracy's sister's house in Cincinnati.

And every member of the family has something to be very thankful for.

For Bryan, it's that Cody is back on the field playing the sport both of them love.

For Sydney, "him being well enough that we can go and be with family and not have to worry about him getting sick while we're gone."

For Joe: "Just that things are so back to normal."

For Cody: "Family that is always there for me."

And for Tracy?

"I said for so long that I’d give anything for status quo and boring," she said. "And it’s boring right now, and I love it."

Follow Star reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow.