Dream sidelined, but player won't quit

SOUTH JORDAN — Like most teenagers, Sarah Hunter longed for warm, summer days as the end of her junior year approached.

Not because she wanted to sleep late or lie in the sun but because she hoped to work hard enough in the summer months to earn a starting spot on the Bingham High girls basketball team the following fall — her senior year.

Then the numbness started.

First, it was just her foot. It was more an annoyance than a problem, so she just kept going to weight training class and ignored it. Then the numbness moved up her leg and into her hip.

"Then one day I could barely walk," she said. "I was walking like I was drunk."

Doctors thought it was a pinched nerve and sent her to a chiropractor. She laughs about that now.

Four MRIs and two months later, the 17-year-old South Jordan girl was given a diagnosis that made her mother weep.

"When they said I had multiple sclerosis, both my mom and grandma started crying," she said.

With MS, there is scattered and sometimes slow demyelination of the central nervous system. The myelin is like an insulation around the body's nervous system, and it erodes at varying speeds, causing short circuits that lead to muscular and neurological problems.

"They couldn't even talk," she said of the diagnosis. "I needed someone to tell me it would be OK."

That someone turned out to be herself.

She found out on July 1 and the next day went to the high school where her teammates were participating in a summer basketball camp.

When Hunter walked into the gymnasium, coach Rand Rasmussen, a notorious hard guy, couldn't contain a smile.

"She just comes in and you light up," he said. "She's just a great girl. I mean, her nickname is 'Princess.'

"Then she said, 'Coach, I have MS,' and her eyes well up with tears, and mine fill with tears. I was tongue-tied. I couldn't think of anything to say, which is unusual for me. All I could think about is why is this happening to this young, beautiful girl? She's at the beginning of her life. Why not me? I'm older and I've lived life. She's just starting out."