- LaQuinta "Q" Hayes started having leg pain after being hit by a drunk driver in 2015.
- Doctors discovered she had a rare bone cancer.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with LaQuinta Hayes. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Back in 2015, I was driving home from my job as a welder when I was hit by a drunk driver. I was lucky to walk away from the accident, but I was angry. I had just put new tires on my car and scrubbed it. Now it wasn't drivable.
But that accident may have saved my life. A few weeks later, my legs started to swell up. I thought it might have been an injury from the crash. I went to my chiropractor. He got the swelling down in one leg, but it appeared on the other side. His treatments didn't help, so he sent me to get an MRI.
When the results came back, he called me and asked me to come in. That was odd — he usually told me everything over the phone. In his office, he started crying. I was the first patient he ever had to tell that they had cancer. He was a chiropractor, not an oncologist, but he had been right about everything else, so I believed him. Soon after that, a doctor confirmed: I had osteosarcoma, a rare, aggressive form of bone cancer.
Even with chemo, I needed my leg amputated to stop the cancer
I thought this just can't be real. This can't be my life. I was thriving in my two jobs: at one I had just become lead welder, and at the other, I'd been promoted to fabricator. That meant I was designing what everyone else was building. My wife and I had two teenagers at home.
Cancer didn't care about any of that. Doctors told me I had to start chemo immediately. They called my chemo drug the Red Devil because of how awful it was. I would go into the hospital for five to six days for a round of chemo, go home to my family for two days, then be admitted again for the next round.
Even with that chemo regimen, doctors told me that my left leg needed to be amputated. Those months between starting chemo in January and getting my amputation in April were torture. I didn't have the energy to do anything, and I was miserable.
Hearing other patients at the hospital helped change my perspective
After the amputation, I was extremely depressed. The nurses would come in and open my window shades, but I didn't even want to see the sunlight. I didn't know what the rest of my life would hold, but I knew it would be almost impossible to return to my welding career.
Then, I noticed something. In the hospital, you can hear when other patient's monitors stop. I was in my room, depressed about losing my leg. But I could hear when people around me weren't getting a second chance.
I thought, where is my fight? That changed my perspective. I reminded myself that I, at least, was alive. I wasn't going to pity myself. I found mental health support at the survivorship clinic at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and slowly started rebuilding my life.
Sports helped me focus on my abilities rather than my disability
About three years ago, I met a man at a local flea market. He was in a wheelchair and passionate about sports. I hadn't played any sports since I was 13, but this guy kept at it, asking me to join his leagues every time I saw him.
After a year of pestering, I gave in. I tried softball, and loved it. Next came basketball and rugby. I had no idea that in wheelchairs, rugby players crash right into each other. But my world really opened up when I discovered amputee soccer. We play on crutches, but it's anything but boring.
Now I'm on the US National Team for Amputee Soccer. I've traveled to Australia to help start amputee soccer there soon after the Women's World Cup on the continent. Most recently, I went to Poland, to play that country's amputee team. I love that on the field the focus is on my ability, not my disability. I am an athlete in this new space. And I know the rest of my story is still being written.