{"id":2045,"date":"2013-04-26T18:03:36","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T18:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/?p=2045"},"modified":"2013-04-26T18:03:36","modified_gmt":"2013-04-26T18:03:36","slug":"beating-cancer-was-like-winning-a-championship-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/2013\/04\/26\/beating-cancer-was-like-winning-a-championship-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Beating cancer was like \u201cWinning a Championship Game\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Timothy Kendricks, cancer survivor, graduating senior and JSU basketball player.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Taylor Bembery<\/strong>
\nBlue & White Flash \/ Variety Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the age of 18 most teenagers graduate from high school and become concerned about what college they hope to attend. However,\u00a0 Timothy Kendricks, a graduating senior criminal justice major\u00a0 and sociology minor at Jackson State University,\u00a0 was fighting a serious illness. Kendricks, a Jackson, Miss. native, who will graduate May 4, developed a Wilms tumor and was told that it was not terminal but he could lose his life.<\/p>\n

Kendricks found out this devastating news after a high school football game.<\/p>\n

\u201c I got hit in my lower pelvic area and later I went to urinate after half time and I was urinating blood. I kept going to the hospital and they kept sending me on a run around and that\u2019s when they kept telling me I had a bladder infection but that wasn\u2019t the case,\u201d said Kendricks<\/p>\n

A Wilms tumor is a type of kidney cancer that occurs in children and rarely develops in adulthood. Kendricks was a part of that rare percentage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen basketball season came around, I was getting fatigued real fast and that has never happened to me before. All of sudden, I vomited a white liquid,\u201d said Kendrick. \u201cFirst, doctors were saying I had liver cancer and that wasn\u2019t right.\u00a0 I had to ask myself,\u00a0 \u2018An 18 year old with liver cancer?\u2019 I was told that I was going to lose my life over it. That\u2019s when they found out that I had a childhood cancer that forms in the body of children and it just continued to grow in my body during my senior year of high school,\u201d said Kendricks.<\/p>\n

Kendricks had to give up what he loved to do the most, basketball.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I was betrayed and that it wasn\u2019t for me. To think I could have signed with colleges and played.\u00a0 Knowing that I was sick and wouldn\u2019t be able to play anymore was a problem, because playing basketball was all I knew at the time,\u201d said Kendricks.<\/p>\n

Being diagnosed with cancer and having to undergo chemotherapy was a fearful experience for Kendricks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fears: thinking, what if it doesn\u2019t work? What if this stuff appears again while I\u2019m reaching my peak coming back to the game of basketball? Even wondering if someone in my family can get it are fears that I had to deal with,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kendricks dealt with his illness by staying active. In a record breaking 9 months time, his cancer was no longer detectable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like my body was healthy enough for it to be gone. When the doctor told me the cancer was no longer detectable I was relieved. That was the most joy I\u2019ve felt in my life. Me and my mom were just sitting there because I felt like I just won a championship game,\u201d said Kendricks.<\/p>\n

After losing scholarship offers due to his illness, he went on to play basketball at Marion Military Institute in Alabama, where he met JSU Coach Tevester Anderson in 2010. He later accepted a scholarship to JSU.<\/p>\n

During his matriculation at JSU, Kendricks played on the Men\u2019s Basketball team as a guard. He hopes to get accepted into graduate school majoring in Rehab Counseling. He also plans to be a counselor for troubled youth to help them get back on the right track.<\/p>\n

Kendricks is in the process of writing a book entitled \u201cThe Battle on The Court.\u201d The book is scheduled to be finished by the end of May.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to inspire by reaching the youth and helping them with certain things that they\u2019re going through by showing them that there is more to life. Even to the athletes, to show them if something happens to you, it\u2019s not the end of your road; just keeping pushing forward and working hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cI\u2019m graduating now and that\u2019s one of the best things I\u2019m ever accomplishing in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taylor Bembery Blue & White Flash \/ Variety Editor At the age of 18 most teenagers graduate from high school and become concerned about what college they hope to attend. However,\u00a0 Timothy Kendricks, a graduating senior criminal justice major\u00a0 and sociology minor at Jackson State University,\u00a0 was fighting a serious illness. Kendricks, a Jackson, Miss. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}