Sitting across from Kim Jagd in her office, you would never be
able to guess what she has been through in the past nine months.
The 14th-year women’s volleyball assistant coach is as upbeat
and full of energy as ever. She is in very good physical shape. Her
hair is still short, but it is beginning to grow back. Her biggest
challenge right now is trying to help the Bruins advance to the
Final Four. But just nine months ago, Jagd found out that she had
something much more important to worry about than sports. The coach
was diagnosed with stage I breast cancer in early March. Signs that
something wasn’t right with Jagd came as early as the fall of
2005, during last year’s volleyball season. Jagd, who played
volleyball for UCLA in the mid-1980s and has been active in sports
since she can remember, began to feel aches and pains and was
experiencing a kind of fatigue she had never felt before. She went
to see doctors, who ran a variety of tests on her. Their
conclusions were similar ““ everything was just fine.
“My doctors said, “˜Well, maybe you feel tired and your
joints ache because you’ve beat your body up so bad over so
many years,'” Jagd said. “”˜You’ve had
six surgeries and you’re bound to start feeling aches and
pains and not feeling so well.’ I just kind of swallowed it
and said, “˜OK, that’s the way its going to be from now
on.'” So life went on like normal for Jagd ““
until one day in late February, when she discovered a lump on her
breast. The next week was full of tests, and the forceful anxiety
that came as a result. Jagd was fortunate to get an answer much
more quickly than many women due to her being part of the UCLA
system, but the faster pace also meant her emotions were
intensified. “The first visit was, “˜It’s probably
not cancer at somebody your age; it’s probably just something
else,'” Jagd said. “The next doctor was, “˜I
think this is a 50% chance you might have cancer.’ The next
call was “˜100%, we got your biopsy back, you’ve got
cancer.'” The minutes after that call presented Jagd
with some of the most excruciatingly painful emotional moments she
had ever experienced. “I kind of went into my room and nobody
knew where I was for a couple of hours, and I just ““ I
bawled. I cried nonstop for that whole evening and tried to absorb
the whole thing.”
Family Reaction The news of Jagd’s cancer
struck a painful chord in her family. Jagd, her parents and her
17-year-old son Ryal were all living together, while daughter Nikki
““ a freshman setter for Pacific University at the time
““ was away at school. Jagd’s father has fought through
five different forms of cancer and had his bladder removed just two
months ago. And after investing so much time helping her husband
over the past few years, Jagd’s mother now had to go through
it all again with her daughter. “It was really tough,
especially to see my dad cry,” Jagd said. “My mom
wanted to take it on for me, my dad wanted to take it on for me.
That’s how you feel as a parent. I can’t imagine
““ I don’t ever want to be in that situation. But my
parents had to go through that. Their daughter had cancer.”
The family did receive very good news after Jagd went in for her
lumpectomy. In addition to removing the lump from Jagd’s
breast, the doctors also performed tests to see if the cancer had
spread. To the relief of Jagd and her family, it had not.
“I’m so lucky,” Jagd said. “I mean, it
could’ve been something else. It could’ve been a
horrible diagnosis.” Jagd decided to opt for chemotherapy at
the advice of her doctors. She went through eight chemotherapy
infusions before finally ending the treatment in September.
Throughout her battle with cancer and chemotherapy, Jagd’s
children have gone out of their way to show support for their
mother. Ryal, a volleyball and football player at Palos Verde High
School, wears the emblem “Hope, Courage, Faith” on his
football cleats and has gotten both his volleyball and football
teams to wear pink wristbands in support of breast cancer
awareness. He and his mother shaved each other’s heads as
Jagd’s hair began to fall out. “Kids at school now come
to him to talk about their parents or siblings or people in their
families that are sick,” Jagd said. “He’s become
the source of stability and the rock for his peer group as a result
of this.” Nikki, who transferred from Pacific to play for
UCLA this season, initially had to deal with the situation from
afar. Although coping with her mother’s cancer while away
from home was difficult, being back at home with her made things a
lot easier and enabled her to give her full-fledged support.
“It was really hard at first, not having her here,”
Jagd said. “Having her here now is so great. It makes my
little world complete, having everyone close by again.”
The Ultimate Support Group More than anything
else, Jagd needed a source of support and comfort while fighting
the cancer. That’s why, despite all of the physical and
mental duress she encountered on the road to recovery, Jagd hardly
took any time off as a coach: She knew that her team was as good a
support group as any could be. “I knew that they would be
there for me,” Jagd said. “And they were in reality
more so than I expected.” When Jagd first found out about her
cancer, she couldn’t bear to tell the team, so she had coach
Andy Banachowski do it while she was not present. “Forty
years in the coaching business, (and Banachowski has) had just
about every situation except for this one,” Jagd said.
“He handled this just beautifully. He handled me; he handled
the team well; he was gracious; he let me stay ““ whatever I
wanted to do.” Although the challenge was unique for
Banachowski, he took it on with enthusiasm and a hopeful spirit.
“It’s been a tough situation for all of us,”
Banachowski said. “It’s just been a great educational
experience for all of us to be involved and to see someone battle
cancer and say that they’re a survivor.” Immediately
after the announcement of Jagd’s cancer was made, she
received an outpouring of support from her players, their families
and the UCLA Athletic Department. Jagd received nonstop calls, text
messages, e-mails and gifts throughout her chemotherapy, and all
the support had an enormous impact on her. “You
should’ve seen my house the first week after my
diagnosis,” Jagd said. “There were flowers in every
corner of my house. It was kind of crazy.” And while the team
was able to have a positive impact on Jagd, her toughness and
determination had even more of an inspiring effect on the team.
“She’s been very strong and open to talk about
it,” senior middle blocker Nana Meriwether said.
“She’s educated us a lot about it. It’s been
amazing to see her go through it and be so strong about it.”
“I think our team expected her to miss a lot more than she
has,” senior libero Colby Lyman said. “Just seeing her
go through it all and just having a great attitude about everything
has been incredible.” Lyman knew about the pain and suffering
that breast cancer causes beforehand, from personal experience, as
her mother had fought and survived breast cancer just a few years
earlier. Lyman’s experience in dealing with a similar
situation made her a leader on the team. She even took the time to
call Nikki while Nikki was still playing for Pacific last year, to
comfort her and teach her about breast cancer. “It was really
helpful to have Colby there,” Nikki said. “She not only
gave me encouragement, but she gave me facts (and assured me:)
“˜She will do better, she will get better.'”
The End of the Road to Recovery After going
through chemotherapy, Jagd endured seven weeks of radiation
treatment, five days a week. The treatment is a painless procedure
that takes about five minutes ““ similar to an X-ray.
Jagd’s radiation treatment ended in the middle of November.
She now must take one pill of Tamoxifen ““ a drug designed to
prevent reoccurrence ““ every day for five years. There is an
estimated 97-98% chance that a relapse will not occur.
“I’m really lucky,” Jagd said. “You hit the
one-year mark, you’re in better shape. You hit the two-year
mark, four year-mark, five-year mark; then that’s what you
keep hoping for.” As the recovery process nears completion,
Jagd has emerged as an inspiration to all who have come in contact
with her throughout the past nine months. She has come out a much
stronger person with a renewed sense of appreciation for all that
life has to offer. “Good mornings to people that you see
every day are more important,” Jagd said. “Living with
my family, getting to see my parents every day ““ I
don’t think I took those things for granted, but
they’re just more enlightened, more enhanced.
Everything’s more important these days.”