UNCW volleyball player Meredith Mitchell had a simple request.

“I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me,” she said.

Mitchell’s got a point. She is not someone to be pitied.

Admired is the proper thought.

Mitchell is playing her second year at UNCW.

The sophomore chose the Seahawks over other Florida schools sight unseen. And a year ago, soon after the Naples, Fla. native set foot on campus she underwent a physical.

Mitchell went through the usual routine. Then the nurse practicioner felt her throat.

And noticed a lump.

Two doctors, an ultrasound and a biopsy later, she got the bad news: Thyroid cancer.

Mitchell continued her season, academic career and her life while undergoing two surgeries and two batteries of chemotherapy.

“You think of things differently when it happens to you,” Mitchell said. “Anyone says cancer, it’s like ‘Oh my gosh.’ So, when I found out I had it, it’s such a shock that I’m 18 years old and I have cancer that I really didn’t cry or anything, I was really, really stunned. And after my surgery, it changed. It was more of, ‘I’ve got to get this done. I’ve got to get this taken care of.”

But it was that continuation of life – the semester she went through her chemical treatments she worked through a solid 15 hours (with two labs), continued her training with the squad – despite losing her thyroid which provides much of the body’s energy – and kept living the life of a college student.

“I love the people here,” Mitchell said. “The atmosphere is amazing. I can’t ask for a better school to come to. I can’t ask for a better experience, even though I’ve had some trouble. There’s a reason I came here. I never even visited the school and I came here. … For some reason, I wanted to come here.

“I’m sure everything happens for a reason… (Someone) came into my life when I found out all of this is happening. Well, it was (teammate) Anna Brewster whose dad went through some of these things, cancer. A brain tumor and everything. And they took me in and became my second family here. And I think that was a blessing. For them to find the tumor here, you know, during a physical. I never felt anyone feel my neck before. So, if I went somewhere else, who knows how long it lasted; how long it would have gone on.”

A lot of what she went through can be cured. Medication gives her the energy level needed to take the place of her thyroid.

But it was in the quiet reflective moments that the realization of what happened caught up with Mitchell.

“It wasn’t until I went off my medication to do my treatment with radioactive iodine that I really cried about it,” Mitchell said. “That I really (understood) what I had gone through was so huge. It was a big deal, it’s not a normal thing.It does change your perspective. Not necessarily how you treat people, how you look at life or whatever, but it changes your perspective on just how you approach other problems in your life. You might approach them differently, you start thinking that things are not as hard as you thought they were.”

This season, Mitchell has played a supporting role on the volleyball team, mostly coming off the bench to contribute. She’s looking forward to her next two years on the squad and eventual pre-med biology major.

“Everything should be pretty fine,” said Mitchell, who has one more radioactive iodine treatment remaining. “I plan on definitely seeing where I should feel a lot better and be myself. I plan on bringing a lot of energy on the volleyball court and doing better in school. I mean I didn’t do badly … considering. I don’t know how I got through it. It must’ve been my parents and work ethic.

“And the way they always taught me how to be.”