Lauren Hill fights through worsening symptoms to score another basket

Lauren Hill always objected whenever someone called Mount St. Joseph's Nov. 2 season opener her last game.

On Friday night, she showed why.

The freshman with the inoperable brain tumor summoned the strength to enter her team's game against Bethany College late in the second half even though she had been too weak to practice the past two weeks. Mount St. Joseph then ran the same play it installed for Hill before her debut earlier this month, enabling her to cut across the lane, catch a feed on the left block and spin right for a layup that was anything but easy even if the defense was more lax than usual.

The extent to which Hill's condition has worsened was obvious in how slowly she moved and how she immediately collapsed to the floor after attempting the layup. Teammates helped her to her feet and made sure she was OK as the crowd at the Baldwin Wallace Invitational tournament gave her a rousing ovation.

Hill's strength has served as an inspiration to many nationwide since WKRC-TV in Cincinnati, Yahoo Sports and other outlets first shared her story weeks ago.

Doctors discovered an inoperable tumor growing at the base of Hill's brain stem last year and diagnosed her with DIPG, a rare, inoperable pediatric brain tumor that kills 90 percent of victims within 18 months. Fearful that Hill wouldn't be strong enough to fulfill her goal of playing college basketball for the first time, the Indiana native's parents asked Mount St. Joseph to petition to have its Nov. 15 season opener moved up — a request the NCAA granted last month.

Ten thousand fans packed the Cintas Center at Xavier University and a national TV audience watched from home as Hill fulfilled her dream of playing college basketball for the first time on Nov. 2, scoring a layup on the game's opening possession and a put-back late in the second half. She also used her growing fame to raise money and awareness for pediatric cancer research, spearheading fundraisers and doing as many interviews with local and national media outlets as she could in hopes of spreading her message.

There wasn't nearly as much build-up to Mount St. Joseph's second game simply because Hill herself had acknowledged she didn't expect to be strong enough to play. Her mother detailed some of her worsening symptoms on Nov. 11 in a heartbreaking Facebook post on Hill's account:

"Her eyes won’t focus on anything.
She gets really dizzy (vertigo)
Constantly nauseous
Her whole entire right side from the tip of her hair line to her toes is not functioning the way it should. The right side is very heavy and feels like 2 to 3 times heaver then the left side. She says her whole right side is tingly like when your foot falls asleep and when she uses her right hand it feels like she is touching through a woolly glove. Her muscle movements are not controlled. This makes writing and sometimes walking an issue.
Lots of joint pain from steroids. (She wonders if this is the way arthritis patients feel.)
Her neck is really heavy and it hurts to hold her head up. She says riding in a car makes it worse because of all the movement. She can’t turn her head fast from side to side or it makes her dizzy.
Headaches come and go. Sometimes they are so bad it hurts to use her eyes.
She is sensitive to light and sound they can trigger headaches, as well as screen time, texting, computers and TV.
Memory loss is horrible. She often feels clueless and she cannot focus on anything for too long.

In spite of all that, Hill has raised more than $350,000 for pediatric cancer research and has tried to live her life as normally as possible.

On Thursday, she attended a play with a friend, went out for pizza with her aunt and presented a signed jersey to a Cincinnati Bengals player whose daughter is stricken with cancer. And on Friday, she scored another basket in a college game, one we now know better than to prematurely call her last.