MOUNT VERNON — Laura Sedano didn’t know if she’d ever play softball again.
That was just one of countless concerns Sedano, now a senior at Mount Vernon High School, had when she was given horrific news.
She had bone cancer.
But that didn’t stop a determined Sedano, who battled through the pain of cancer, radiation treatments and physical therapy to return to the Bulldogs this spring after missing the previous two seasons.
“That was the one thing that really affected me because my family, we’re all big sports people,” Sedano said. “I started doing sports when I was four and your parents could coach you. I had to play. I did soccer, softball, volleyball, wrestling — every sport except basketball. I couldn’t get that down.”
Sedano found out about her condition almost accidentally. As a freshman on the MV junior varsity, she slid into a base during a game and felt pain in her knee. Later, her knee continued to ache — and the throbbing pain was getting worse.
“(The pain) was happening constantly and it was getting stronger. That’s when I kind of knew something was wrong,” Sedano said. “But everybody else was like, ‘Oh, put some ice on it. It’s just an injury. You’ll get better.’ I’m like, ‘OK, it’s kind of hurting really bad. I’m not even able to sleep.’”
After a few days of grueling pain, Sedano couldn’t take it anymore. A trainer at her CrossFit workout suggested she go see a doctor and that’s when Sedano and her family’s lives changed forever.
Sedano’s doctor gave her unbelievable news: the pain in her knee was not a result of tweaking it on the softball field. She had osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer most commonly found in teenagers and young adults. She was relocated to the Ronald McDonald House near Seattle Children’s Hospital and began chemotherapy right away.
“They were saying these really long, difficult words,” Sedano said. “Once the doctor said, ‘Your hair’s going to fall out and you’re going to have to stay in the hospital and you’re going to have to move to Seattle,’ that’s when it hit me that this was pretty serious.”
Sedano, who left school during the day to get her knee looked at so that she could return for softball practice that afternoon, was whisked away before Mount Vernon softball coach Jay Silver, then in his first year with the program, knew what happened.
“I was just blown away,” Silver said. “I had known the family for a while since we moved here. Laura had played in youth softball with my daughter and she was a great wrestler. … The younger girls that had known her for a while took it a little harder. The older girls didn’t know her as much, so for them it was kind of, ‘Wow that’s crazy.’ But for the ones that knew her, it really kind of shook their world.”
Sedano’s teammate and best friend, Ashley Moshier, remembers when she first heard the news.
“It was heartbreaking. I cried and cried,” Moshier said. “I thought, ‘What’s going to happen to my best friend? What am I going to do? How am I going to be there for her?’ I went and visited her in the hospital all the time.”
For the next seven months Sedano underwent regular chemotherapy treatments, with one-week breaks in between. She also underwent surgery to remove the cancer in her leg and have a titanium rod put in place.
“I felt like I was in the hospital 75 percent of the time,” Sedano said. “It was like a five-day process. They gave you a week off but it wasn’t really a week off because I would still get a high fever and would come back to the hospital.”
With chemotherapy wrapping up, Sedano tried to return to Mount Vernon High School her sophomore year. But the effects of her treatment forced her to return home and take classes online.
“I just kept getting sick,” she said. “I literally went back to school a week after, which was probably not the best idea. But I think I just wanted to get back to a normal life. It was probably a little too soon.”
Sedano returned to the school her junior year and had more success. For her senior year, she had another goal: return to sports.
“I just feel like it wasn’t fair for me to not be able to do it for my sophomore and junior year. That was my goal as a little kid: do all the sports and get a scholarship,” Sedano said. “Obviously, I’m not capable of (playing now) at the college level so I really just wanted to get back in here before I go to the real world and I’m not going to be allowed to do this.”
Sedano was so eager to get back that doctors never, technically, gave her their blessing.
“They never, necessarily, cleared me,” Sedano said. “Not really.”
Still, nothing could keep Sedano from the wrestling mat as the Bulldogs started their season. Originally, Sedano “wasn’t really thinking I would do it really competitively,” but the senior ended up making it to the state tournament in the 170-pound weight class.
That got her fired up to return to the softball field, which posed a much higher degree of difficulty.
“Just the running part, shuffling and stuff to get to the ball,” Sedano said. “In wrestling, I got them to the ground first so it was more on-the-ground stuff. But this, you’re on your feet the whole time. That’s the one thing that’s been kind of hard.”
Silver heard from some players that Sedano was going to turn out for softball, but he didn’t know for certain until the first practice in March.
“She was there at tryouts and has been there everyday since then,” Silver said. “What an inspiration she is now. To the girls we say, ‘You think you’re having a bad day? Laura’s fought for her life. We can get through whatever’s going on.’”
A struggle for Silver is finding playing time for the senior infielder.
“I know that bothers her. It bothers me,” Silver said. “I wish I could get more girls more time, but she still shows up every day and she has a great attitude. She’s laughing and smiling and still just working for it.
“She comes out and battles everyday and she wants to get in when she can,” Silver continued. “She’s not a kid that would just settle for being happy to be there. She wants to play and she drives for that. She was not able to do anything that involved running until a few months ago. Sometimes when we’re running in practice, you can see she’s hurting and in pain but she battles through it.”
After all she went through, there was never a doubt in Sedano’s mind that she would get back on the field.
“I’m not a quitter,” she said. “I try my best. I don’t like to fail. I was not going to quit. I don’t get a lot of playing time, but that’s not really what I joined softball for, to be the No. 1 person. It’s more … I see sports as a family. We’re all so connected and we’re all really good friends.”
Her softball family is excited to have Sedano back.
“I knew she was going to be back at some point,” Moshier said. “She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Seeing her come back was really cool. She was like, ‘Eh, whatever. I’m going to do it anyways.’ It’s really cool having her here and just being a part of the team again.
“It’s heartwarming to see her out there.”
Sedano has to wear a brace on her right knee for support. She admits that about three-quarters of the way to first base she’ll start to limp.
“I’m not the strongest runner,” she said, “but it’s good enough.”
While Sedano’s dream of playing sports in college may not come to fruition, she is enjoying being in remission and helping the Bulldogs, who are 5-5 in Wesco 4A play and 10-6 overall, fight for a district berth.
After her high school career is over, Sedano plans to attend Skagit Valley College for two years before transferring to Western Washington University to get a degree in education.
“She’s just a poster person for surviving,” Silver said. “She shows that you can beat it. You can fight.”
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