Pasco athlete won't let vision trouble stop her

Lacey McKillop finds a way to see through all adversity.

The 17-year-old Hudson High School senior is blind in her left eye and color blind in her right.

"My left eye is the only thing that's broken," McKillop said with a laugh. "Everyone thinks it's a fake eye because it follows with the other eye, but it's just a little busted.

"I can't see 3-D movies, which, I guess now is frustrating," McKillop added. "When I was young and played hide and seek, I'd only hide behind half the tree, so I wasn't very good about it. My parents have just been very open about it and crack jokes about it. I'm not going to be offended — what am I supposed to do about it? Cry? I can't see perfectly, but I'm alive and rather have one eye than none."

McKillop was born with Neuroblastoma, or a form of childhood cancer, that caused four tumors on the optic nerve on her left eye. Those are preventing blood flow to the eye and causing the blindness. McKillop had three surgeries before she was 4, but now, she's cured of cancer.

McKillop plays midfielder on the Cobras' soccer team and has learned to adjust to being blind in her left eye. She also plays on Hudson High's softball team.

"She jokes about it a lot, but she just handles it well," fellow senior midfielder Karlie Lamphier said. "If a girl comes at her from her blind side, she'll say, 'You can't come from that side. I can't see you! You caught me off-guard.' But she's got a great attitude about it.

"I give her major props to do it because it takes a lot of courage to come out here and play when there are times when she doesn't know where the ball could be coming from," Lamphier added. "(The left side) is her blind side, but she works her butt off out here and plays like she doesn't even have a blind side."

Growing pains

Learning to live with a limited field of vision has been a day-to-day process for McKillop. But not without her fair share of bruises, and some frustration.

"Like the other day in a game, I got tripped by a girl, fell, got mad and yelled," McKillop said. "I didn't yell at her, but just because I was frustrated because everyone can see something like that coming and brace themselves for it. I always can't.

"It's really difficult because everyone is yelling at me to mark someone, but I can't see them behind or to the left of me and they can. It's frustrating — I can't tell you how many times I've been in the store and I get hit by a cart because I can't see it or I run into someone. They think I'm kidding around, but I'm not."

McKillop generally plays left midfield or defense so she can see the entire field. It's been an adjustment process, Coach Stephen Jones admits, adding sometimes he forgets which side McKillop should play.

"She's probably had to overcome so much adversity in her life that she takes sports and puts the passion she lives her life into that," Jones said. "With soccer, she takes each skill or concept and learns it step by step and moves on to the next. Her dedication to doing that shows with everything she works hard at, and once she learns the game a little better, we can put her in the middle and she won't have to have her head on such a swivel."

Hindsight 20/20

McKillop has her falls, growing more accustomed to them by the game. She'll admit, with a laugh, of course, that she's run down a softball umpire by accident, but says it's still never easy to take one for the team.

"A girl went and clipped her on the blind side," Jones said, "and it wasn't a dirty play, just a tackle on the blind side and it scared her because she couldn't see it coming. Our team just has to communicate, and if they communicate with her, tell her what's coming, then she's just fine. It's a good lesson because it reminds us to talk to everyone on the field."

Through it all, McKillop stays humble and focused on working hard. She realizes it may take extra work, but her personality is always upbeat and spirited.

"When I was younger, I would space out and stare and everyone used to say something about it," McKillop said. "I had to train myself, I had to learn how to do things the way I do them, but it was just a mind over matter that powered me through."

McKillop says she is not held back by her eyesight.

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"It's what I've known my whole life and I could care less if everyone else has two eyes. I am who I am and that's who I'm going to be."