U.S. field hockey’s Karlie Kisha grateful for Olympics after cancer treatment

It’s an exercise that most elementary school kids go through at some point.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Karlie Kisha’s version came in the form of a fourth-grade vision board. Students were to cut out images from magazines and map out their future. Kisha included the Olympic rings on hers. Swimming and soccer were how she planned to get there at the time.

But Kisha (then Karlie Heistand) excelled at a different sport: field hockey. She was a two-time all-state selection at Hamburg Area High School before following in her sister Rayell’s footsteps by attending the University of Connecticut, where she won national championships as a freshman and senior.

Even then, in 2017, the Olympics didn’t seem all that close. Kisha was named to the U.S. Women’s National Development Team for the next few years, and the U.S. didn’t qualify to play in 2020, when Kisha, who was an assistant coach at Villanova at that point, finally was named to the national team.

» READ MORE: Team USA last won an Olympic medal in field hockey 40 years ago. But it came with a price.

How many of those vision boards really ever turn out? About 20 years later, and four years after the national team’s failure, Kisha and the U.S. earned qualification. The final names of the women heading to Paris to compete were to be announced in mid-June, and the Olympics were in sight, just as the little girl in Berks County had always planned.

But on a routine visit to an ear, nose, and throat doctor in late April, those plans suddenly were in doubt. The doctor discovered a lump on Kisha’s neck. It was her thyroid, and, while Kisha had no other real symptoms, later tests revealed she had papillary thyroid cancer.

“It was a really tough time,” Kisha said. “There’s no easy way to say that.”

» READ MORE: Pain, tragedy, and war couldn’t keep sprinter Thelma Davies from the Paris Olympics

Doctors initially were unsure if playing in the Olympics was possible. “They were preparing me for the worst,” Kisha said, but she had her goal, and she was on a time crunch.

Kisha underwent surgery on May 17 to remove the thyroid and some lymph nodes where the cancer had spread. While still connected to a drainage tube, she refused to stay in bed. She told her mother, Diane Heistand, that she wanted to go for a walk. Heistand thought they would roam the hospital hallway outside her room. But next thing she knew, they were in the lobby … and then outside.

“She just kept walking. She couldn’t sit still,” Heistand said. “She wanted to keep moving. She was just driven … to be picked and be part of the team. That’s what got her through, I think.”

It was Kisha’s composure, her mother said, that stood out. It’s something Heistand, a former coach and player, has always seen in her, on and off the field.

» READ MORE: Mike Sielski: Without Caitlin Clark, Cheryl Reeve is in a no-win situation at the Olympics. She bears some of the blame

“She doesn’t get frazzled,” Heistand said. “She’s very cool, calm, and collected on the field. This could have really frazzled her. But she just moved forward and kept going and didn’t let it take over her.”

A week after surgery, Kisha flew to Belgium to reunite with her U.S. teammates for FIH Hockey Pro League matches. She began training shortly after, and 16 days after surgery, was on the field participating in the Pro League.

On June 12, the U.S. officially revealed the 16-player women’s field hockey team that would compete in Paris. Kisha was on the list, along with nine other Pennsylvanians (two traveling reserves also are natives).

“I’m extremely grateful and just very, very happy that I can still be able to do this,” Kisha said. “It’s been very tough to think that this goal, this dream that I’ve had for so long, can be taken away at any moment.”

Treatment wasn’t finished, though. In early July, Kisha went through radiation. On July 4, Episcopal Academy grad Ashley Sessa shared on her Instagram story a picture of Kisha wearing a shirt that read: “Caution. I’m radioactive.”

“You’ve got to keep it light,” Kisha said. “If you’re not having fun, then what are you doing?”

» READ MORE: Episcopal Academy graduate Ashley Sessa has her sights set on the Olympics

Kisha’s teammates, she said, “have been absolutely amazing. … They hold a special place in my heart, for sure.”

The radiation treatment also came with a brief change in diet. Kisha was on radioactive iodine, and had to deplete her body of iodine and not eat any processed foods with sodium for more than two weeks. She’s looking forward to croissants and baguettes in Paris, she said.

Two weeks ago, Kisha was given the final all-clear. She was told she was cancer free and good to go for the Olympics. She flew with the team last week from its new headquarters in Charlotte, N.C., and pool play begins Saturday. Her next checkup isn’t until the fall, and while her perspective on life may have changed drastically, she’s hopeful the worst of it is in the past.

“These are going to be some of the highest highs and the lowest lows that I’ll ever go through,” Kisha said. “It’s all part of the process and a part of the journey and I’m just grateful that I’m still able to do this.”

» READ MORE: Wilmington native Megumi Field has chased her Olympic goal all her life. But at what cost?

Heistand and her husband, Cliff, will land in Paris two days before the U.S. plays its first game Saturday vs. Argentina (1:45 p.m., CNBC). Kisha’s husband, Josh, will be there, too. Rayell, Kisha’s sister, is due to give birth in September and can’t make the trip, but will be watching back home.

Moments before the game, the national anthem will be played. In the stands, two proud parents and a proud husband will watch Kisha, in the arms of her teammates, live out a dream. It will feel a little bit different than maybe anyone had planned just a few months ago. And it’s certainly different from what the fourth-grader who made a vision board could have thought.

“When they’re in high school, they play the national anthem, at UConn they played it … but when they get on the national team, it’s a whole different feeling,” Heistand said. “It’s euphoria.

“It’s everything. I’m going to start choking up. It’s just a dream come true. Everybody dreams it. All parents dream it. Not many have it come true, and it’s true now.”

Down on the field, Kisha will feel the emotions, too.

“I know I’m going to cry,” she said. “I’m already thinking about it. I know I’m going to be a mess, but a mess in the most special and amazing way … just tears of joy.”