ebony

Ebony Nettles-Bey has been playing basketball since the second grade. Her passion for the game led her team to its first-team all conference honors and a scholarship offer from UW-Milwaukee.

Nettles-Bey had a promising career in the sport ahead of her when she moved to Verona, Wisconsin this summer. Then she got the most devastating news of her entire life. 

From WKOW:

“At a couple open gyms, I was having trouble breathing. Then, I went to an AAU tournament. I couldn’t go up and down twice. I was just dead. Then, I went in to the hospital Monday. I had a lump under my breast like on my rib. So, my mom took me to the hospital. They said I had a lot of fluid on my lungs. That’s why I couldn’t breathe very good. After that, that led to me being diagnosed with sarcoma cancer.”

[…] Ebony was diagnosed with stage four Rhabdomyosarcoma. It is an uncommon and potentially deadly form of cancer. “I thought I was going to die. So, I just started crying. Now, I don’t think I’m going to die. I’m not really that scared of it anymore.”

Read more at WKOW

While the odds were not in the 16-year-old’s favor, Ebony made the choice to keep living.

The cancer, the surgeries, the chemo and radiation. The hair loss and weight loss. None of it slowed her down. She earned her spot in the Verona starting lineup, and has been playing ball ever since.

Her courage inspired her new teammates to wear new warm up shirts that read, “Beat Cancer.”

Amazing. Way to go Ebony!

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