People battling with serious health problems may lose hope of living their life fully, but one teenager showed that the opposite is possible.
Lauren Hill, the 19-year old basketball player from Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, continued to be part of her sports team despite being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, inspiring fans. On Friday morning, however, she lost her battle to cancer and died at a hospital.
Just after she turned 18, Hill was found to be suffering from Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, or DIPG, a type of brain tumor, but she managed to become part of the Mount St. Joseph team and scored in her first collegiate game in November last year against Hiram College.
Brooke Desserich, who cofounded Hill's nonprofit foundation The Cure Starts Now, said that Hill did not want to allow her condition to dictate her final days. Hill knew how to make the most of each day and had a knack for encouraging other people to do the same with her perseverance.
"Through Lauren's fundraising and advocacy efforts, she not only became a spotlight on the lack of funding for cancer research, but she most certainly has become a beacon guiding researchers for years to come," Desserich said.
Hill's nonprofit foundation has so far helped raise over $1.5 million for cancer research. After she was diagnosed with the disease in November 2013, the high school senior set out to raise awareness about her rare pediatric cancer as well as raise funds for long-neglected research on the condition.
"Spreading awareness has been my goal throughout this whole thing," Hill once said. "I wanted to help kids because I feel so terrible that this is happening to a lot of people and nobody knows about it."
DIPG is a type of brain tumor that can be found in the part of the brainstem located on the brain's lower back near the top of the spinal cord. The condition primarily strikes children, with sufferers often getting diagnosed when they are between five and seven years old. Between 100 and 150 patients get diagnosed with DIPG in the U.S. per year, but unlike other forms of pediatric cancer, treatment improvements and cure rates have been slow for DIPG.
Besides raising awareness about DIPG, Hill had a goal to play in a college basketball game regardless of the fact that her condition had weakened her body, affected her skills and afflicted her with joint pain, severe headaches and dizziness.
