Student with cancer to fulfill dream of playing college basketball
Lauren Hill's first game for Mount Saint Joseph University will also be her last.
The 19-year-old has terminal brain cancer. She was diagnosed last fall after suffering from vertigo and dizziness while playing for her high school team, reports CBS News correspondent Vladimir Duthiers.
"I wasn't keeping up with the other girls, my ball handling was sloppy, I was tired," Hill said. "But then I figured that maybe it was just because I was out of shape."
An MRI revealed that Hill had an inoperable brain tumor.
"I never gave up for a second even when they told me that I have a terminal diagnosis," she said.
Hill was able to rejoin her teammates for her senior year as she went through chemotherapy and radiation, but last month, a follow-up MRI confirmed the worst.
"I knew in the back of my mind that it had grown," Hill said.
Doctors told Lauren she has just months to live.
"There's nothing really to say, because they can't do anything," she said, crying.
"She was a huge gift from God, and if he takes her back we'll have to deal with it, but while we had her for 19 years she was ours," Hill's mother said.
Hill continues to celebrate life, and thanks to the NCAA, Hill's dream of playing in a college basketball game will come true. The Mount Saint Joseph team's first game of the season has been moved up to Nov. 2. Hill will be joining her teammates on the court wearing her number 22, just for this one game.
"The roar of the crowd, the bouncing of the balls and the squeaking of the shoes -- I just can't wait to be on this court in a basketball uniform with the number 22," Hill said.
She said she's not scared dying.
"But the people I worry about are the people that I'm leaving behind," Hill said.
Lauren's story was so moving, and there is such an interest in seeing her play, that the university says it may move the game to an even bigger venue so that everyone who wants to attend can be there for what will be her first and final college game.