Blue Jackets pediatric cancer hero performed an anthem to remember

For Lila Urbanic, there were plenty of terrible things about being diagnosed with cancer at age 12 last fall.
There was the physical pain of the surgeries and everything that came along with them. There was the mental pain of being stuck in the hospital and isolated from her middle school friends. There was the specter of the unknown that everyone with cancer goes through and has to feel even more daunting for a pediatric cancer patient with their whole life ahead.

But that's not to say there weren't some positive memories too -- relationships with doctors and therapists that will last a lifetime, the feeling of a family and a community coming together to support one of their own.
And now that Lila is through chemotherapy and cancer free just over a year after finding out that a Wilms tumor the size of a volleyball had overwhelmed one of her kidneys, she also has a few scars she gets to show off, including one from her surgery that runs from her sternum to her belly button then splits off from there.
"It's huge," Lila says now with a look of wonder on her face. "I look like a T-bone steak. I get people who ask about it, and I get really excited because I can tell them and watch the reaction on their face when they realize what happened. I do like showing it off because it's like a little bravery reward in and of itself."
Lila, now 13, seems like someone who always looks at the bright side of life and handles everything thrown at her with humor and grace beyond her years. It wasn't a fun journey, but it did lead to some unique and amazing experiences.
One of those came Nov. 15 during the Blue Jackets' annual Hockey Fights Cancer game. As one of the pediatric cancer heroes that was recognized during the game, Lila was already planning to be at Nationwide Arena for that night's contest against Philadelphia, but her father, Sean, had another idea.

Lila has been taking voice lessons since fourth grade and even qualified for the Olentangy Voice Ensemble after starting at Olentangy Orange Middle School last year, so Sean took a video of Lila singing the national anthem and submitted it to the Blue Jackets.
That led to Lila getting to step in for Leo Welsh for a night, performing "The Star-Spangled Banner" before the Flyers game. Not only that, Lila knocked it out of the park, earning not just a rousing round of applause from the Nationwide Arena faithful but plenty of congratulations ever since.
She admits it was a stressful, nerve-wracking experience performing in front of thousands -- but nothing someone who has beaten cancer couldn't handle.
"It was so much fun!" Lila said. "At the very end, I heard all the applause and then we walked off, and in my mind, I was thinking, 'What the heck just happened?!' It was a lot of fun."

A Difficult Journey

That Lila was able to step onto the Nationwide Arena ice and deliver such a performance would have seemed like a dream exactly one year before.
Last fall, Lila just didn't feel right, and a number of disquieting signs began occurring with her body. At first, she noticed her ribcage was uneven, but an exam didn't detect any major issues; it was chalked up to the typical growing pains of being a 12-year-old.
As time went on, though, it appeared something was majorly wrong. At one point, her leg started swelling, and an unusual vein popped up that bulged from her rib cage all the way down to the bottom of her stomach. Eventually, it became hard to walk from class to class at school because of pain with every step when she landed on her right foot.
"It got to the point she said, 'Mom, I can't go to school today,' and this is a kid that wanted to be a doctor," her mother Jennifer remembers. "I was like, 'Wait, you don't want to go to school?' I thought, 'OK, something is wrong.'"
Eventually, as her blood pressure rose and the signs kept getting worse, Lila returned for more tests, and an ultrasound of her abdomen revealed one kidney was functioning normally but the other was not. A CT scan in late October then revealed the unfortunate news -- there was a tumor that had taken over the non-working kidney, and it was likely a Wilms tumor. Cancer.
The good news is that Wilms tumors are common enough that there are standardized treatment plans. The bad news is they generally happen in much younger kids, and Lila's age complicated things.
"It is generally a cancer that affects younger kids, like age 3 or 4," Jennifer said. "Doing a quick Google search, the rate of recovery for age 3 or 4 is really good. We were like, 'OK, great, if you're going to get a cancer, it's a great one to have.' What we didn't know is her being diagnosed at age 12 created a new level of complexity."
Lila was quickly put on a chemotherapy regimen known as DD4A, but her biopsy results revealed a much more aggressive plan known as Regimen M was required. After a few weeks of treatment, on Jan. 17, Lila had a major surgery at Nationwide Children's Hospital to remove her tumor, a 3.5-pound mass that she named "Jerry."
"I figured something of that size should have a name," she said.
Simply put, it was not an easy surgery. Lila's ribcage was split open so that doctors could have access to a clotted blood vessel during the eight-hour surgery, and the aftereffects included stomach cramps that made her feel like she was being choked and sent her shooting up ramrod straight in her hospital bed.
Then there was the chemotherapy. Long days were the norm, with Lila often having to arrive at 7 a.m. for daylong sessions that stretched into the evening to prevent her blood pressure from rising too much in the course of treatment. In the end, she endured 36 weeks of chemotherapy, 14 consecutive days of radiation therapy and months of physical therapy.

As difficult as it was physically, the mental toll was all too real.
"The hospital felt like it kept me on a leash," she said. "Every time I got far enough away to have fun or enjoy myself, it yanked me back, never letting me get too far. It was inescapable, constant -- and not fun."
For those who have gone through cancer treatments, it's a part of them that never goes away, yet it can often feel like something that's hard to wrap one's mind around. As Lila looks back at her time in treatment, it can feel like yesterday -- but also something that had an impact on her that she can't quite yet put her finger on.
"Weird comparison here, but it's like almost being hit by a car," Lila said. "You can't realize what really happened until it's completely gone. You have to look back, and then you start analyzing it. But it went by so fast that you didn't really realize the danger you were in or what could have happened or the weight of the situation."

Back To Normal

Lila missed attending Orange Middle School for most of her seventh-grade year because of the treatments, but she still kept up with school assignments despite her time away. She would even reach out to teachers to find out what she needed to do and tried to work ahead so she wouldn't fall behind when going through the toughest treatments.
At the end of the school year, she was recognized at Orange's awards ceremony, receiving a standing ovation from her classmates and recognition from social studies teacher Mike Demana.
"It's been one of the most amazing, inspiring things I've ever seen in my 11 years of teaching," he said in introducing Lila at the assembly.
Lila finished chemotherapy in July and had her chance to ring the bell, signifying the end of her treatments. When she did so, there were so many doctors and staff members present that she was almost overwhelmed.
"I had a hard time recognizing everybody who was there because a lot of people who were there had a role in a far-off branch of my case," Lila said. "I know that I had a lot of hematologists there and some of the hematology students who had worked there, and some people I had never seen before. They knew me, but I didn't know them. I was so happy to see all of these people who were dedicating their time to keep me alive. It was awesome."

Since then, life has generally returned to normal. She's able to attend school, visit with her friends, see family including her sister Caroline and brother Joseph, and even attend hockey games featuring thousands of fans.
Lila was one of five pediatric cancer heroes recognized by the Blue Jackets, but Sean's idea that she perform the national anthem was quickly agreed upon by the team's game operations department. That meant a night off for usual anthem singer Welsh, but he was still present to greet Lila before the game for a photo and some encouragement.
"I was just like, 'It's you!'" Lila said of when she met Welsh. "It was really fun to meet him. He was a very nice guy. I shook his hand, and oh my gosh, it was so exciting. My dad took a picture of us. (Welsh) said he had heard good things coming from everybody, and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, Leo is complimenting me!'"
By the time Lila's anthem was over, just about everyone agreed, including her father.
"She's never carried the 'Land of the free' note like that," Sean said. "I was concerned she would get nervous, but I was more proud than I've ever been when I heard her perform. I thought she did just beautifully. I was really impressed."
The rest of the night at Nationwide Arena was spent enjoying the game with friends, family and the rest of the CBJ cancer heroes. There were plenty of hugs and encouragement from those who know what it's like to go through the battle of pediatric cancer.
And with the chance now to look ahead rather than back, Lila has some big plans. Her wish as a pediatric cancer patient is to be able to take a psychology class at Harvard for credit, and while she's not 100 percent sure what she wants to be in life at 13 years old, the thought of being a child psychiatrist to help kids going through what she endured has become an attractive option.
There will be time to figure everything out, of course. In the meantime, there's plenty of small victories, like the fact her long, curly brown hair is starting to grow back. Lila may have scars she'll carry for life, for better or worse, but it's hard to take the smile off her face.
"I'm still here," she said with confidence, "and looking fabulous."