Many teenagers experience pain of varying degrees as they go through their adolescence. Most of the time, it is written off as growing pains, but in the case of Kimberly Hicks, it was cancer.

Hicks, a 27-year-old U.C. Davis graduate in human development and psychology, is currently completing her pre-med requisites at Sacramento State. She is doing this in order to attempt the Medical Admission College Test or the MCAT, and pursue her dream of joining the medical field. Hicks, at the age of 15, was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma during her sophomore year of high school.

Ewing’s Sarcoma is a type of bone cancer which is composed of one to several malignant tumors in the bone or soft tissue according to American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons website.

This type of cancer usually only affects children and young adults and is most common in those between the ages of 10 to 20. The most telling sign of this type of cancer is pain and swelling in the area of the tumor. The tumor usually appears in the pelvis, the thigh and the trunk of the body, but has also been known to appear in the arms. For Hicks, the pain in her leg became too much and a trip to the doctor revealed the cause.

“They sent me in for an M.R.I. Literally, I’m in the machine, and they must have called the doctor to look at the screen while I was getting the scan. (Then) an oncologist pulled me out,” Hicks said. “My mom was like, ‘Why was an oncologist here?’ I was 15, I didn’t know what an oncologist was, but my mom knew that was cancer.”

With that news, Hicks started the process of chemotherapy, which is a treatment using cytotoxic drugs that destroys rapidly-dividing cancer cells in the body. While this treatment can eradicate some types of cancer, it also destroys other types of rapidly-dividing cells in the body, such as ones in the lining of the bowel, hair-producing cells, the sex glands and the blood-forming tissue in the bone marrow, according to the National Health Service website.

This wasn’t the end of Hick’s treatment, however; the tumor had caused bones in her leg to fracture. Amputation was originally the plan until a new treatment opportunity was presented to her.

“They were preparing me for the grieving process; then they found this surgeon who had just developed this brand new surgery, and was like ‘Do you want to try this?'” Hicks said. “What’s the alternative? If it goes wrong, you amputate, right? So giddy up, let’s go. So my knee, my tibia and my femur are titanium.”

After the surgery, Hicks wasn’t able to walk again for a year, but insists now her “prosthetic” leg feels no different from the other.

“They reattached all the nerves and the muscles and the tendons to the titanium and it feels exactly the same. It took me a good year or so to walk again; it was not easy, but it works great now,” Hicks said.

It had been four years since Hick’s initial diagnosis of the Ewing’s Sarcoma, and the treatments as well as her high school graduation were behind her. Hicks, then 19, had started college, moving into the dorms at U.C. Davis. There she received a call from her doctor that the cancer had spread to her lungs. She had to have her ribs cracked open to perform a biopsy; during that process the doctors removed the cancer and half of her lung with it. At that point Hicks started chemotherapy again but the kind of drugs she was given during the first rounds weren’t enough anymore. She started on the same treatment that breast cancer patients go through.

Her second bout of cancer behind her and in her last quarter at Davis, Hicks got the news that her battle was not over. At the age of 22, Hicks went in for a routine scan and found out there was cancer in her kidney. Originally it was thought to be a reoccurrence of the bone cancer, but after being sent to a specialist in San Francisco, the doctors found something different. The doctor’s best guess is that through the radiation, drugs and chemotherapy Hicks had received for her earlier stages of cancer, there had developed a different cancer in her body called Renal Cell Carcinoma. This time the doctor’s prognosis wasn’t as hopeful.

He basically told me, ‘We’ve never seen this happen. Live for the short term; tie up all (your) loose ends and say (your) good-byes,'” Hicks said.

After the initial report made by the doctor, Hicks waited for roughly five months before hearing a response. The treatment this time consisted of no chemotherapy, but Hicks had her kidney removed and, with it, the cancer. She went on to finish her degree in human development and psychology, and worked for five years as the director of special events at the American Cancer Society.

“I’d be meeting these researchers that the American Cancer Society was raising money for, and they would tell me about the research things they were doing. I just nerded up and would be like, ‘I miss the science.’ So I quit my job, saved up enough to live without having to work, and now I’m here,” Hicks said.

Though Hicks no longer works for the American Cancer Society, she still volunteers for many organizations that are committed to fighting cancer and supporting those who have it. One such organization is called ImTooYoungForThis, which is a nationwide association that supports people with cancer who are younger than 40 years old.

Through this group, Hicks found a new source of support and inspiration as well as a way to give back. Though her battle has ceased for nearly five years, many women all across the United States still battle with it every day. That battle is brought to light especially in the month of October, which is National Breast Cancer Awareness month.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, aside from non-melanoma skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women. Breast cancer patient Susan Dituri acknowledges the pain she has suffered from it and the strength she has found through it.

“I am going through the chemo right now. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I swear if I had to go through it again I would almost rather die – almost being the key word. I do it for my son; I have a dream to dance at my son’s wedding one day. That’s why I do it – for him,” Dituri said.

Just like Dituri, Hicks has a vision of the future that keeps her going as well. Since Hicks was first diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, she has yet to make it five years without a falling into a relapse; this November she hopes things will be different.

“I have a cat scan scheduled Nov. 14 and I’m going to have a party. When that scan comes back clear, that’s going to be my, ‘I’m not dead yet party,'” Hicks said.

Matt Rascher can be reached at [email protected]