Playing Through -- Rider Freshman and Former High School Athlete Conquers Cancer
In high school, Amelia Corney was an accomplished student-athlete. In the afternoons, Corney would play golf for the girls’ team at Spring-Ford High School in Montgomery County, Pa. By night, she competed on the USS Tiger Sharks club swim team at The Hill School in nearby Pottstown.
It was not until the beginning of her junior year in high school, however, that Corney encountered her toughest competition. In September 2007, at the age of 16, she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
“If a challenge comes up, I know I have to face it no matter what,” said Corney, who started swimming when she was 8 years old and playing golf when she was in eighth grade. “I just treated the cancer like some kind of challenging practice. I put in all my strength to get it done.”
It all started with a nagging bug bite from vacation that would not disappear. One day, when the medication did not appear to be working, Corney went to the doctor for a blood test. Later that afternoon, her mother came to pick her up early from golf practice to take her the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).
“My first thought was ‘Really, mom, I’m ready to go to my friend’s sweet 16 party,’” Corney recalls. “I wasn’t nervous.”
By 2 a.m. the next morning, Corney, who had a blood transfusion, was told that she had cancer of the white blood cells. “I thought I was dreaming,” she said. “I wanted to be home in bed with my cat.”
Instead, Corney remained in CHOP for three weeks. When the leukemia went into remission, the doctors told her that she was an early rapid responder and could go home. It seemed she had beaten her foe.
The next morning, though, she noticed a painful black spot the size of a pencil point on the back of her ankle. She went back to the hospital where the doctors identified the spot as a fungus that was spreading through her blood system. They performed emergency surgery on her leg, which at one point, she nearly lost. In the days that followed, Corney had four additional surgeries and was sedated every other day. She spent a total of 57 days in the hospital where she underwent numerous treatments of chemotherapy and 50 blood transfusions.
“I started to lose brain function. I couldn’t hold a conversation. I couldn’t control my emotions. I would repeatedly ask the same question,” she remembered.
Then one day Corney asked her mother where two presents were from. “She told me they were from friends Kelsey and Julie, who had visited me the day before,” she said. “That was the point that I just lost it. I couldn’t remember that my two best friends were there – that was hard for me.”
After leaving the hospital, Corney continued her chemotherapy treatments and physical therapy for seven months. “It was hard to leave the hospital,” she said. “I guess I had done my time, but I felt like I should be there for my new friends.”
While Corney had worked on class assignments at the hospital, she found she was not as far along as her fellow students academically when she returned to school in January. In fact, she said some of her teachers suggested that she repeat her junior year.
“I never gave up. I always have the mentality that I can do it,” she said. “I thought it would be a point for cancer and not for me if I did not graduate on time.”
Corney not only worked hard in the classroom, but she managed to rejoin the golf team and club swimming. In fact, she completed in a swimming championship at Penn State University during her junior year. “I came in last place, but just to get back in there again was awesome,” she said.
Now a freshman Computer Information Systems major, Corney said she chose to come to Rider after her high school computer teacher, Jamie Scheck, encouraged her to apply. She immediately fell in love with the Lawrenceville campus when she visited. In the future, she plans to work in a career where she can combine her love for computers and her passion for health care.
Corney, who continues to see her doctors every month for IV treatments and every three months for spinal taps, said she now volunteers for CHOP where she and a group of teens try to improve the lives of patients by holding carnivals and changing the cafeteria menu. In addition, Corney and her family volunteer for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. She plans to participate in Rider’s American Cancer Society Relay for Life on Saturday, March 27, and Sunday, 28.
“Everyone has inner strength,” she said about the experience. “I don’t think you need something like cancer to realize your inner strength, but it helped me find my inner strength.”
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