Funderburk grateful for support as wife balances expecting baby while battling cancer

MINNEAPOLIS – If you thought Kody Funderburk carried a heavy load in the first few weeks of the season, you don’t know the half of it.

Funderburk – who has emerged as one of the Twins’ most valuable relievers as well as a cheerful and popular clubhouse presence – and his wife Alicia have spent the past several months dealing with the kind of real-life scare that no one should ever have to endure. While pregnant, Alicia was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She has begun chemotherapy treatment, but it’s on hold as the arrival date of baby Funderburk approaches.

Remarkably, thanks to early detection and quality care, both baby and mother are expected to be just fine. Doctors will induce labor in Alicia on Tuesday with Kody present while the Twins are in New York.

“There’s not really any anxiousness,” Funderburk said Saturday morning. “I think I’m more excited to have my first child, and obviously the pregnancy wasn’t exactly how we were expecting so I’m kind of ready to get past that and welcome the baby and then get my wife back on treatment.”

The Funderburks first learned they were expecting in September of last year, toward the end of the season. Early diagnostic testing revealed some abnormalities in Alicia’s results, and for about two months the couple knew something was amiss but did not know what. In January, Alicia was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s and began chemotherapy.

Kody notified the Twins organization soon thereafter, and when he attended Twinsfest, he did so wearing a mask because it was unclear what Alicia’s immune system could tolerate. But fortunately, all along there was confidence from doctors that mom and baby would come through it OK.

“I would say from the beginning, the doctors were all very optimistic,” he said. “Besides the fact that she had it, we had so many positives. Usually you catch it early enough to be able to treat it. Once we found out it was Hodgkin’s, we kind of took a step back. Breast cancer runs in her family and that was one of the cancers we were kind of afraid of, but once we found out it was Hodgkin’s, we caught it early enough, it was more just about, ‘OK, what do we need to do?’ Kind of like how baseball is, you kind of get to your process, ‘OK, what’s next?’ ‘OK, go execute that.’ ‘What’s next?’ ‘OK, let’s do that.’ And every step of the way, our doctors and team were super supportive and compassionate. Never once did we ever feel like this was going to get out of hand or anything like that.”

The Funderburks make their offseason home in the Twin Cities, which has made all of this somewhat easier to tolerate. However, Alicia stayed home when Kody went to Spring Training. She was doing well enough that she felt OK sending him on his way to try to make the team – something manager Derek Shelton actually said was pretty well set from the beginning of camp.

Throughout that time, Funderburk kept Alicia’s situation private, though from Twinsfest some teammates knew and of course the club did as well. He and Alicia felt comfortable making their story public this week, and Kody said he’s already heard from other people who have dealt with similar challenges.

The support from everyone – teammates, friends, family, fans and strangers – has been deeply moving to the couple.

“Community is what it takes to get through something like this, and we’ve had a lot of help and love and support,” he said. “Having the support with Shelty and the team has allowed me to come here and stay level-headed and be excited about baseball. And obviously with how strong my wife is, she allows me to be able to do what I do and go to Spring Training so she can take care of herself and all that. I think having the community and the strength that we’ve had has allowed me to really embrace everything and do what I need to do.”