Levi Hamilton
Cancer Survivor
Kankakee, IL
Biography
Levi’s journey began with bouts of vertigo during soccer, which soon escalated to severe illness and an ER visit. What started as a suspected stomach tear led to the discovery of medulloblastoma, a rare brain cancer, later revealed to be an unusual combination of two tumor types. After surgery and a year of radiation, scans, and spinal taps, Levi faced the challenge of relearning how to walk and adjusting to lasting effects on his balance and mobility. Rehabilitation was slow, with setbacks like muscle tightness and casting treatments, but he found comfort in the support of his family, nurses, and doctors. Though he can no longer play soccer as before, Levi embraces recovery as an ongoing journey, encouraging others to stay positive, focus on the present, and trust that they will get through even the hardest moments.
Diagnosis and first symptoms
I guess I have to start when it first began, which would be when I was having a lot of vertigo.
I was in the middle of soccer at the time and I guess I just thought it was a normal occurrence for soccer players, but it really wasn't. We were trying to figure out why and everything, and a couple of days later I started throwing up and getting really sick.
“ I was in the middle of soccer at the time and I guess I just thought it was a normal occurrence for soccer players, but it really wasn’t.”
One day we went to the ER and I got diagnosed with—I forget what it's called. I had a tear in my stomach. They sent me down to the hospital because that's where all the right meds were and everything. After that, they discovered that I had cancer. So, yeah.
I had medulloblastoma. The type of cancer that's in the back of your head.
Treatment and recovery
A couple days later, I had that removed. After that, it was probably like a one or two week recovery process of me just being passed out, so I didn't really remember anything of those few weeks. There was also just a time where I couldn't really move my head or anything. And that was a little bit aggravating.
Those few weeks were kind of tough for me because I couldn't really do anything, I had everything done for me, and I really couldn't just be with some people. But fast forward a couple of weeks, I am at a follow-up appointment with my doctors and they explained to me that my brain tumor was actually confused and I had two types of brain tumors in one. I forget the names of those, but it was pretty rare at the time so they just talked me through everything and I was fine with it but it was a little bit disturbing. That wasn't normal, necessarily.
I started getting recommended for treatments for that because they thought it had been long enough. And I spent about a year getting treatments of just different radiations, scans and stuff. Spinal tabs, lots of blood work and a lot of different sort of things that I haven't heard before.
After that, I had gone into a sort of rehabilitation therapy thing and I forgot how to walk at one point and had to relearn and everything, all that was a lot. They had me just doing basic things like walking inside, in between small spaces and stuff like that. And that was hard for me at that time. Now it's not as hard, but it is still a little bit tough to do those sort of things. And I can't really play soccer like I used to, or play any sort of games like that that require me to use my legs and find stability.
They decided I should have a break and I should take a couple months off to get finished with my treatments and stuff, and then they'd resume the therapy after that. For a couple of those months, since it was in the summertime, it was kind of just relaxing really, to just sit around all day, not having to worry about anything. But it still aggravated me a little bit to not be able to do as much as I wanted to. Afterwards, maybe around December, beginning of January, I finished my treatments and I don't know why, but we couldn't get me back into therapy until March or April or something.
After a while, they recommended doing stretches for me because I had a really tight hamstring and my foot was kind of pointing down. I couldn't lift it up. And so after a couple weeks of doing that, I remember they talked about casting for my legs and everything like that, which was a little bit nerve-wracking at one point, but I just thought it's a different kind of casting to stretch out my legs. I shouldn't be really nervous about that. So afterward when I got there, it was actually quite comfortable to do that. They had me lay down and for the next two hours, they just worked on my feet and stuff. I almost took a nap. I was pretty okay with it after I had got it done.
My balance took a step back from then, and I really hadn't thought that it would take me back a step as far as it did go. But me and my family figured out how to cope with it and everything. And these past couple of weeks, I've just been changing them every week and readjusting and stuff. The casting experience isn't really that bad if you don't have a broken leg or something like that. So that's about all I have to say so far.
It was a long journey and I think it will still be a journey after this.
I would say that my family being there helped me a lot. And all the support from all the people there, the nurses and doctors really helped me through that.
Advice
I would recommend always trying to stay cheerful and looking on the upside of things. Like, “I'm gonna get through this, even though it may take a little while, I'll still get through this.” And just accepting where you're at right at that specific moment.
“I would recommend always trying to stay cheerful and looking on the upside of things… and just accepting where you’re at right at that specific moment.”
A video of Levi’s conversation with the team can be found on our Portraits Project YouTube channel here.