OMAHA (KMTV) — Whenever Emily Austin gets on a diving board, her biggest fan and mom, Jodie, is never far behind.
"I'm kind of an obnoxious mom," said Jodie. "But that has come through everything that's worth celebrating. We should celebrate because you really don't know when it's all over."
Emily thought her diving career was far from over at the start of her sophomore year until she had to make multiple trips to the ER because of back pain.
"I started having numbness and tingling in my feet," Emily said. "A couple of days later, I couldn't walk."
"No one could figure out what it was," said Jodie. "And it got to a point where it was very scary and people and professionals were telling us that it was very likely in her mind. You cannot fake not being able to all of a sudden not being able to walk. I didn't care. I put her on my back and I said we will go to that hospital and we will figure something out and we demanded that they do something. It was an awful time. We found out that she had cancer in her spine."
Specifically, Emily had Ewing sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that typically affects children.
"That was a little scary," Emily said. "But I had a lot of people in my corner. My first thought was this is crazy, this isn't real. I didn't think this was actually happening because it's something that you see in movies or shows or read in a book and you don't think it's actually going to happen to you, and then it did. And then my second thought was,oh my gosh, I'm going to be bald."
"My heart was broken," said Millard North diving coach Todd Leutzinger. "I was scared for her, scared for the team."
"The odds of her surviving a year was very low," said Jodie.
Austin had to have emergency surgery followed by 28 rounds of radiation and 14 rounds of chemotherapy, forcing her to miss nearly her entire sophomore year at school.
"It was really painful physically and it's also mentally challenging," Emily said. "Because everything in your body is like, just lay down,relax, like I'm in so much pain, but another piece of me was just like I have to get up if I want to get back to diving and get back to life."
"The only thing that really kept me standing straight is the fact that I have taught my kids, my husband and I have taught our kids that-- you just don't give up and you always have faith," Jodie said.
After finishing treatment in May of 2024, Emily not only returned to school for her junior year, but also to diving, in which she qualified for state last February.
"I kind of thought back to a year ago," said Emily. "I couldn't walk and I was going through all this stuff and now I wa sgoing to state for diving and it just made me realize how much I've gone through and what I've overcome and how grateful I am for it."
Now as a senior, Austin's already qualified for state again, but wants to take it even further this year by making the podium, which would mean a top 8 finish.
"That's always been a dream of mine," said Emily. "And so if that were to happen after all that I've been through, I would just feel like I've pushed through a lot."
"She's always been a fighter," Leutzinger said. "That's always been from day one. You never doubt her. If you doubt her, then you're just going to fuel the fire. I aspire to be Emily when I grow up, to be honest with you. She's amazing."
"In my mind, she's on that podium anyway forever," said Jodie. "She has taught me things that I thought I already knew. She's far wiser than I ever could be, and she's a source of hope for me and the rest of our family."
After high school, Emily plans on pursuing a career in nursing, specifically oncology, so she can help other kids in their fight against cancer.
