Comeback stories :: Hannah Kearns

This is the third of three profiles this week highlighting Montana athletes who are returning from serious setbacks incurred last season.

The flowers? They were from her coaches. At least that's what she was told.

In December, Montana track and field coach Brian Schweyen and some of his staff visited Hannah Kearns, then a freshman, at Community Medical Center in Missoula, shortly after Christmas.

This is what he remembers: "She was all chipper and talkative and upbeat and ready to roll," he says. "We had a great conversation." And apparently he brought flowers.

This is what she recalls: Nothing. The visit took place in the five days that meningitis wiped clean off the memory of her hard drive.

"A few months later it was strange to hear what I did those five days," she says. "Evidently I ripped out both IVs in my arms. I ripped off my clothes and sprinted down the hallway. I didn't want to be in the hospital anymore. I wanted to get out. I had to be held down with straps."

So, yeah, December was a little crazy for Kearns. Within a single month of the calendar she experienced the entire scope of the fickle nature of the human body, from its potential to reach new heights to those things, even unseen, to which it is vulnerable, which can leave it defenseless, helpless.

Indeed, it was a time of highs and lows for Kearns, a month that couldn't have started any better and could hardly have ended any worse. In this story, the apex arrives first.

After an autumn spent training, the Montana track and field team did what has become tradition. The Grizzlies ended the fall semester at Eastern Washington's Candy Cane Invitational in early December.

It's a small meet, just the Grizzlies and the Eagles, and comes nearly three months before the Big Sky Conference indoor championships, with the holidays putting a brake on training, but under Schweyen, no chance to compete is insignificant.

"I was nervous," says Kearns, who would be the surprise of the meet.

After playing soccer and competing in track and field at Missoula's Big Sky High School, with a brief attempt at basketball, Kearns found just what she was looking for in Schweyen's program.

"Fall training really kicked my butt. I finally had coaches who knew how to train me. They really understand the technical side and how to make people better," she says.

A 17-foot long jumper on her best days in high school, Kearns flew 18 feet, 8.5 inches in her first collegiate meet in Cheney, finishing second only to teammate Sammy Evans, a Big Sky champion in the event.

Her performance got her thinking about the future, big things, and not years down the road. She was ready for January and February.

"If I didn't get sick, I think I could have put another foot and a half on my jump during the indoor season," she says, and that would have had her challenging for a Big Sky title. She had a lot to be excited about on the bus ride home and in the days that followed. Fate had other plans.

"Life just wanted to make sure I didn't get too high, I guess. It wanted to reset me, which it did, completely."

It was nearing the end of her first semester as a college student. There had been a new level of training she needed to get accustomed to, new academic demands she hadn't faced before. And now, her first bout with final exams.

With all those stresses, no one can blame her for blowing off the early stages of illness that set upon her. She had worked herself hard, to the edge, right into the perfect host. Textbook case, but this one could have been penned by Stephen King.

"I didn't feel good at all during finals week," she recalls. "But I just thought I had a head cold or sinus infection. Maybe the flu." She toughed it out, as so many college students before her have done. Just get to the finish line by any means necessary.

During one of her math finals, three times she had to get up and go to the bathroom to vomit. As would be expected, it drew the suspicion of the exam's TA.

"She finally followed me into the bathroom, because she thought I was cheating," says Kearns. "Oh, you really are throwing up! It was very uncomfortable and not fun at all." Not to be overlooked: She got an 86 on the exam.

She made it through finals, no more stress, but things got progressively worse. Because fatigue and nausea wouldn't allow her to be on her feet for more than two minutes at a time, she needed her dad's help just to move some things out of her dorm room and back home, across town, for Christmas break.

Finally, the incident that put her in the hospital, when things went from concerning to frightening.

A few days before Christmas, she was at her aunt's home in Hamilton for a family get-together. While everyone else celebrated, Kearns napped in the master bedroom, now nearly two weeks into an illness that was only tightening its grip.

On one of her frequent trips to the bathroom, "All of a sudden I felt pins and needles in my feet. And just like that, an entire half of my body went numb. I tried to yell, but nothing was functioning. I was extremely scared," she says.

This is how grave the situation was: Lying on the floor of the bathroom in the back of the house, she had to use her phone to ring everyone she knew who was inside. Finally enough people saw the calls that her family realized how serious it had become.

She was rushed to the hospital, where there was a spinal tap, a CAT scan and an MRI. The spinal tap revealed meningitis, a treacherous disease that leads to an inflammation of the lining of the brain and the spinal cord, two delicate areas that don't react well to ill-intentioned intruders.

What the test didn't reveal was if it was viral meningitis, the lesser of two evils, or bacterial, which can be fatal. It took two anxious days in the hospital before it came back as viral.

"Thank goodness I had that little episode that put me in the hospital. If I had let it go on, it could have developed into bacterial, and it could have been a lot worse. I don't know if I'm here," she says.

But that wasn't the end of it. It was about to get worse. Before anyone knew if it was viral or bacterial, when Kearns was still nauseous and beset with incapacitating headaches, she was given Phenergan.

It was the medicine her symptoms called for, but unbeknownst to anyone, Kearns is allergic to the drug. It took an already bad situation and made it even more dire. That's when she blacked out.

At least part of her did. She appeared to be fully awake and functioning, but it's the five days she has no memory of. That's when Schweyen showed up. With the flowers. Supposedly.

"It was life-threatening there for a while. It was touch and go, and scary," he says. "It was different than 99 percent of the things we deal with as coaches. Everything else we come across, a pulled hamstring, a bad back, we've seen and are familiar with. This was completely different."

And then the worst of it was over, treated. Mashed potatoes and green beans? Eating them, devouring them, is her first memory. And she remembers the little Christmas tree her parents brought to her room and set up in the corner. A touch of home, of what she missed. The rest is a blur, never to be retrieved.

Eight days after being admitted to the hospital, she was released. She wasn't at full health -- lingering migraines left her wanting to crawl up into a ball until they went away -- but she wanted back in. She wanted to build off what she'd done at the Candy Cane.

But she had lost 25 pounds, and her body wasn't nearly ready for it.

"I tried to do some things at the end of January and February, because that's the kind of person I am. I wanted to be the person I was. I hated being out," she says. Schweyen adds, "She jumped back in a little quick and got hit pretty hard."

It took until the start of the outdoor season before she started to feel normal again. But the performances weren't there. She had one 18-foot long jump but twice as many in the 16s.

She had meningitis in late December, but its aftereffects took a toll on her well into spring.

"I was semi-able to compete outdoor," Kearns says. "I think I should have continued my redshirt through outdoor. I didn't want to, but it would have been best for me. I tried to do too much in too little time. I wasn't ready for it."

So she's back to square one, maybe two, close to where she was a year ago at this time. She may not remember much about being in the hospital, but she has no trouble recalling her performance earlier that month, when she approached 19 feet and didn't even feel like she'd landed her best jump.

She is training hard to put on weight and regain her strength, preparing for another fall, another Candy Cane, the rest of her career.

"I'm super excited about the upcoming year and the potential that I see in myself," she says. "It gives me motivation to push harder. I want to be the best I can be and the best in the conference.

"I have my fingers crossed that nothing else happens. In a perfect world, I've paid my dues. Pick somebody else. It's not my turn anymore."

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Hannah Kearns

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