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Cancer
In the Loop: Cancer, a home run and a famous fan
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Ashlyn Clark's first home run in high school came at just the right time: her softball team's Senior Night. What made it even more special is that it came while Ashlyn is undergoing cancer treatment.
When Humboldt High School senior Ashlyn Clark stepped up to bat and knocked a pitch hard, her mother knew it would be a home run. "I knew it was gone as soon as she hit it," Kristi says. But she only saw her daughter round first base. After that, tears made it impossible to see. Kristi wasn't the only one. "I have no idea what the next batter did, since I had so many tears in my eyes," Ashlyn's coach Doug Van Pelt tells KCCI-TV. "Just a special, special moment for everyone involved."
The hit — Ashlyn's first home run, hit on her team's Senior Night — would have been a special moment under normal circumstances. What made it exponentially more so is that it came while Ashlyn is undergoing cancer treatment. Just two months earlier, she'd been diagnosed with stage IV Hodgkin's lymphoma. "When they told me it was probably lymphoma, I didn't know what that meant," Ashlyn tells us. "Then they threw the big 'C' word at me." That she understood.
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This story originally appeared on the In the Loop blog.
