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Kathleen O’Connor was caught sneaking into Villanova's team drills last spring.

“They’d catch me and say I had to sit out,” the Wildcats senior captain said.

Villanova welcomed O’Connor back on the field full time this fall, one year after being forced to redshirt when she was diagnosed with and treated for cancer.

“You wouldn’t be able to tell from a year ago ‘til now that she’d had all this stuff happen to her,” Villanova coach Julie Young said. “She came back with inner confidence she could do it even though she was nervous. That’s how she’s playing.”

In her first two seasons at Villanova, O’Connor played 34 games in the midfield, 15 as a starter, and was a solid contributor with 32 draw controls, 20 ground balls, 12 goals and an assist. This year, she will start on defense alongside Lizzy Armstrong, Tara DeAngelo and goalie Julia Michaels.

“I’ve always been more defensive-minded,” O’Connor said. “Since my endurance wasn’t at its top peak, I’ve been playing defense. My two best friends play defense. Our four captains are on defense, so we’re a powerhouse back there."

O’Connor brings a toughness to the team that she prominently displayed over the last 13 months since being diagnosed Sept. 13, 2016, with anaplastic large cell lymphoma, a rare type of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma that is found in only one percent of all NHL patients.

“Her story is an inspirational story,” Young said. “A year later, we were fortunate the treatment worked, and she stayed strong and found her love and belief, and believed she could back out there. That’s a big battle when you’re injured, believing that you can get back there.”

Her cancer was caught early, though it took weeks and countless tests before doctors finalized the diagnosis. When it was confirmed by Dr. Michael Duncan, Villanova’s team physician, she couldn’t believe it since she was always healthy.

“I never had strep throat before; I’d never missed a game or practice, never missed one in high school or Villanova,” O’Connor said. “I’d never been out with an injury.”

About one week after moving back to Villanova at the start of her junior year, O’Connor woke up with pain in her shoulder and felt something hard above her armpit. She still had full range of motion, but anti-inflammatory pills didn’t help the soreness.

In shooting drills two weeks later, she couldn’t follow through. When the team was tested for conditioning, something was clearly wrong.

“We re-ran the Manchester Test,” O’Connor recalled. “I got to level 18 last time. I got to level seven this time. I couldn’t breathe, and I felt my arm tingling.”

A low-grade fever followed, and a lymph node near her collarbone swelled up into a noticeable bump. An ultrasound and chest X-ray gave them the first indication that it could be a cancer. CAT scans and PET scans followed, and a biopsy eventually would confirm it.

On Sept. 16, she stood before the team, announced her diagnosis and said she would be redshirting following treatment. Their reaction – much like her family’s had been – was harder to take than the initial diagnosis.

“When I told my roommates and the seniors what was going on, seeing them all cry, and when I told my team the next day, and seeing the new freshman, seeing them so upset, my coaches were crying, it was tough,” O’Connor said. “I’m not an emotional person. My mom has seen me cry about three times in my adult life.”

Treatment was aggressive, she was told, because she was a young athlete in excellent physical condition. It could have been treated with outpatient chemotherapy every two weeks over six months, but she agreed to join a clinical trial at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Instead of going home after a few hours of each treatment, she found out she would stay in the hospital for five straight days with each treatment.

“That’s when I started to freak out,” O’Connor said.

She hated missing classes, practices, and all the bonding moments with her friends. Yet her hospital stays were prolonged, as her treatments lowered her immune system and caused her to catch an infection after each one.

After the first treatment, it was E.coli. Another time, they found a dangerous blood clot in her heart. Later, she developed sores in her mouth that made talking and swallowing painful.

“The treatments were terrible, but the aftermath was worse,” O’Connor said. “I planned to go back to school, but I kept missing out.”

Instead of spending 30 total days in the hospital, she spent 60. She withdrew from classes for the fall semester. Her teammates marveled at how she handled each treatment and setback.

“She never wanted anybody to feel sorry for her,” Young said. “We never saw that side of it. When she was going through it, she definitely had the side effects of the treatment, but as a team and her coach, we never saw that side. She’s a tough kid.”

Through the treatment, her Villanova team, as well as friends from her hometown New Vernon, N.J., and her high school, Oak Knoll (N.J.), kept in contact and visited frequently.

“They were absolutely amazing,” O’Connor said. “They were everything I could expect and more. They made T-shirts and made headbands. They were at the hospital all the time. I told them I had too many visitors sometimes because they limit you.”

When they weren’t around, O’Connor still could feel their warmth from a collection of their letters that she kept in a wooden chest. She was also surrounded by colored artwork on the walls that they selected from a coloring book O’Connor had each time they visited.

“They’d never talk about what was happening,” O’Connor said. “They were a good distraction. There are definitely a lot of entertaining people on my [Villanova] team. They were my biggest support system, along with my family.

“Being on a team made this whole journey easy, if that’s a word you can use to describe it,” she continued. “They made it better. They gave me incentive to come back to campus. That was a huge factor.”

Her cancer went into remission in November of 2016, but she finished the treatments in January to increase the chance that the lymphoma will never return. After spending the Super Bowl in the hospital with another infection, she returned to Villanova for classes and practices. Though physically, O’Connor was a shell of herself.

“I was probably in the best shape I could be in last fall right before I started,” O’Connor said. “That was probably a good thing. As you go on, you get smaller and smaller. I got really tiny. I lost 20 pounds. I don’t have much body fat to begin with, but I was skin and bones for three months.”

O’Connor served like an assistant coach. She started to work out, training on the sidelines with injured teammate Julia Arrix, and her mere presence helped a team that was struggling in a 4-12 season.

“Last year, we didn’t have the greatest beginning of the season, but knowing where Kathleen came from, no one threw in the towel,” Young said. “They all said, ‘We’re going to keep getting better and working. By the end of the season, we grew a lot.

“We were so young last year with the number of freshmen that played and we lost a huge senior class, but that team never gave up,” Young added. “I think it was because of Kathleen and learning from what she was going through. It meant we couldn’t throw in the towel. She didn’t throw in the towel when she found out her diagnosis. She went head on. That’s something that’s helping us this season too.”

Despite the long road to recovery, O’Connor has worked her way back into shape to be able to play at the Division I level again.

“I was training all summer so I was ready to come back and play,” she said. “I knew my lung capacity wasn’t where it was before and I wasn’t as strong as before. Being back with my team and being able to do the run test, with that adrenaline, it made me work harder and come back better.”

Last March, O’Connor was awarded the Nicholas E. Colleluori Award at the seventh annual HEADstrong Lime Light Gala in Philadelphia. The award is presented annually to “a survivor demonstrating heroics and perseverance in the fight against blood cancer,” according to the HEADstrong Foundation.

O’Connor and the award’s namesake coincidentally share jersey No. 27. The Villanova team will continue to raise funds for HEADstrong in honor of O’Connor’s experience.

“This was a terrible, terrible thing, but you can learn so much from it,” O’Connor said. “My team takes things harder than anyone else. Seeing something happen to someone close to them hit home for them.”

This fall, O’Connor’s comeback is still inspiring.

At a Villanova football game two weeks ago, she was named the female recipient of the Sister Mary Margaret Cribben Award for “a student-athlete who unselfishly sacrifices their time, effort, body and soul to lead and motivate his or her teammates in excelling for Villanova University through inspiration.”

“It’s very humbling to be someone’s role model,” O’Connor said. “I haven’t put too much thought into it. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, but I’ve learned so much about dealing with life. It’s changed my life and my friends’ and family’s. In a blink of an eye, something so drastic can change your life. You just have to control what you can and let go of what you can’t. I tried to control my attitude, and sometimes it was terrible, but you have to set yourself up in the best possible situation you can. I tried not to feel sorry for myself.”

O’Connor is appreciative of the gestures, but she has turned her focus to improving the Villanova women’s lacrosse team – and her return should help.

“Seeing her back on the field, it says you can win a big battle, you can overcome adversity and you can do it and get back to a good spot,” Young said. “It’s showing that when life throws you a curve ball or something unexpected comes up, use your support unit to help you get through it. Believe you can get through it and have faith about it, and you can overcome some of these things. It’s baby steps. Sometimes it’s little steps to win the big battle.”