After a stressful few days, Drew Babb sat on the couch in his home with his father, John, trying to relax. His father got up and left for work, but five minutes later, he walked back in the door to deliver news that would shake up Babb’s life.

A biopsy taken from Babb’s neck revealed he had stage one Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As the two tried to process the news, John Babb told his son the doctors were positive about his chance to beat the cancer. Later in the day, they’d have a meeting to discuss the treatment and course of action.

Babb was supposed to be starting a new lacrosse career at Denver, but that was suddenly up in the air after he was diagnosed with cancer in July 2009.

‘Right away, they told me it was definitely a possibility,’ Babb said. ‘It would be hard because I would be coming off of chemo and stuff, but it was still a possibility.’

Babb had just finished up four stellar seasons at Arapahoe High School in Arapahoe, Colo. He planned to be in Denver that fall to begin his college career to play for legendary head coach Bill Tierney, who left Princeton with six national championships to take over the DU program. The lymphoma made the start of Babb’s collegiate career difficult, but he worked his way back after two long years to give Denver’s inexperienced defense a boost as a redshirt sophomore this season.

Before he could get back on the field, he had to beat lymphoma and a host of other setbacks.

It started with some swelling in the right side of his neck during his senior year of high school. Babb didn’t think much of it, and went back and forth to the doctors trying to find a cause for the inflammation. Once the school year ended, his doctors conducted the biopsy that found the cancer the summer before his freshman year at DU.

Babb and Tierney spoke about his future soon after, discussing how they would handle both the cancer and his career.

‘Drew and I have become really close because within days of when I got here,’ Tierney said, ‘that’s when we discovered he had the cancer, and we had to do a lot of heartfelt talking about what the thing was, what the treatment was going to be like.’

Babb’s doctors didn’t know whether he’d be able to play his freshman season at Denver. It depended on how his body responded to the chemotherapy and how quickly the treatment worked.

The chemo was effective, as it started to beat the cancer. But it also brought on another fight. One that ended up being even more challenging than the cancer itself.

As a part of the treatment, doctors gave Babb the steroid medication Prednisone to help with the pain. After about three rounds of chemotherapy, Babb began feeling a pain in his right hip. The medication caused avascular necrosis, a condition that started deteriorating his hipbone.

Babb couldn’t do any physical activity for one full year, which meant playing his freshman season at Denver was out of the question. Babb’s lifestyle went from active to sedentary in a heartbeat.

‘I had to go from that to monitoring myself and making sure I never ran or anything like that,’ Babb said. ‘I think that was really the different adjustment for me.’

He went to nearly every practice, but Tierney made it clear that he didn’t have to attend if he wasn’t feeling well. Weather changes, especially, caused pain in Babb’s hip, and those days made going to practice difficult.

The season and year passed, and the next summer, Babb returned to the gym to begin building his strength back. He was in line to be on the field with his teammates for the beginning of fall practices, fully recovered from the cancer and necrosis.

Or so he thought.

Just weeks before the start of his sophomore year, he began to feel a familiar pain in his left hip. Babb went back to the doctors, and they told him he now had necrosis in that hip and that the bone had stopped growing. He would need surgery to re-stimulate the bone growth.

Denver junior defender Kyle Hercher said watching Babb face a second bout with necrosis might have been more devastating than the cancer itself.

‘He was running with us, he was lifting with us, and then a week before school, he finds out that’s not going to happen. That was really devastating,’ Hercher said. ‘I think that was even harder than finding out he had cancer because he had just put in so much work to find out that he couldn’t do it.’

That began another year off the lacrosse field, but Babb still went to nearly every practice. He turned his attention to the next season.

Like he did a year before, he started the process of getting his strength back.

Lifting in the gym. Light lacrosse work on the field. Each helped him get back into playing shape. His junior year began, and there were no new diagnoses.

The Denver coaching staff added a wrinkle to his return to the field, when they made Babb, a midfielder in high school, a close defender – a move he completely welcomed. It’s been a transition that he’s taken too well, taking advantage of his 6-foot-2, 205-pound frame.

Babb will still feel occasional pain, but mostly, his redshirt sophomore season has been smooth sailing. He’s scooped up 10 ground balls and caused four turnovers in his first season on defense, impressive considering his inexperience.

When he took the field for the first time this season, Babb said it was surreal. As a junior, he was playing in his first game. And it was coming after two difficult years.

The feeling didn’t last long, though. His return to the field, with cancer and necrosis beat, was complete. Lacrosse was all that was on his mind.

‘Once the game starts, all that stuff kind of went to the back of my mind, and I just played the best as I know how,’ Babb said.

cjiseman@syr.edu

Published on April 9, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Chris: cjiseman@syr.edu | @chris_iseman