Athletes spend their entire lives battling for a spot on the podium.
Last Year, Glendale’s Margo Price was on her way to being among the best swimmers in the Ozarks, but that battle for the top quickly turned into a battle for life.
Margo Price has spent a lot of her life in the water.
“She has been swimming year-round for 7-8 years,” said Margo’s mom Cari Price.
That dedication helped her make an immediate impact on Glendale’s team as a freshman.
“She just likes the grind, and we saw that early on. Through freshman and sophomore year a state qualifier last year was just incredible,” said Glendale swim coach Steve Boyce.
Margo made a splash in the freestyle and backstroke events. Until one day last April when Margo’s time in the water stopped.
“One Tuesday morning she wakes up and she’s at the breakfast table and she says ‘mom, my leg feels like it’s asleep,’” Cari Price said. “Then the pain just got significantly worse, so within four days she finally ended up at the ER.”
That’s where Margo and her mom first heard the words Acute Myeloid Leukemia, also known as AML.
“It feels like your world’s just crashing. It just throws you,” Margo’s mom said.
Margo quickly began chemotherapy at St. Jude’s in Memphis.
“She had really aggressive chemotherapy with AML patients,” Cari Price said.
However, Margo wasn’t in this fight alone.
“So many people helped us through.” Cari Price added, “The swim community was amazing, and Olympians,” like Missy Franklin and Kathleen Baker who sent videos of support. “The swim team came, and they actually designed her ‘Team Margo’ logo in the hospital room.”
Team Margo took off on Instagram and the support followed.
Messages flooded in to help Margo move forward, but no message was as good as the one she received after her first round of chemo.
“We did a bone marrow biopsy and I think she had 19% Leukemia cells and immediately it went to zero,” Cari Price said.
Just as soon as Margo’s bell stopped ringing, she turned her attention to getting back in the pool.
“I was hoping to start Glendale (swim) season,” said Margo.
But there is still a long road ahead.
“She was out of the water for a very long time, she really missed it. She got pretty slim; she lost a lot of her muscle. She ended up with I think 67 blood transfusions,” Cari Price said.
Margo was determined and returned one week after Glendale began practice in November.
“Obviously she’s coming in with no training and (she’s) been to hell and back with the chemotherapy. She gets in (the pool) and we’re just doing some basic stuff and she’s just dragging, and it’s hard, and you can see in her eyes that ‘this is hard but I’m going to keep going,’” Boyce said.
“It was harder than I expected it to be, but my physical therapist said it would only take two to three weeks to gain it back and that was pretty accurate,” Margo said.
Two months after returning to the pool, she’s making new waves and is almost back to full strength.
“She is a beast. You almost forget the battle that she’s been through,” Boyce said.
“It’s pretty crazy because she has a faster time than a lot of people and she went through all that stuff,” added Margo’s sister and teammate Maya Price.
“I feel like I’m pretty much at where I was last year, I’m pretty close,” Margo said. “It makes me feel grateful because most people have to go through this for like years and I just love life.”
A new outlook on life, with a lot more life to live.
