Rangers honor mom-daughter cancer survivors

ARLINGTON -- Breast cancer is a traumatic experience for any woman and her family. But when a mother and daughter go through it together …

“It was real,” Allison Lee said in relating the story of how she and her mother battled cancer together and ended up hanging out with the Rangers on Friday night.

“It was awful,” Karen Zins said.

Karen was the first one diagnosed in January of 2015. She was living in Lincoln, Neb., and her daughter Allison was in Frisco, Texas, with her husband, Jon, son Mercer and daughter Ashton. Allison was shocked to hear what her mother was about to go through.

“When she was diagnosed, it came out of left field,” Allison said. “Breast cancer didn’t run in our family. We don’t follow any of the categories, especially me being younger and physically active.”

Her mother’s diagnosis was a reminder to Allison of the importance of self-examination. She was 37 years old at the time, and her own examination revealed a lump in her breast.

She went to the doctor and had a mammogram, and the resulting biopsy showed that she, too, had breast cancer. Both Allison and her mother were going to go through the dreaded ordeal together.

“If my mom hadn’t been diagnosed, I don’t know how much longer it would have been before I found out,” Allison said.

They were both at Globe Life Park in Arlington on Friday night. Allison was the guest of the Rangers as their 2019 Honorary Bat Girl in support of the annual Going to Bat Against Breast Cancer initiative, which is traditionally commemorated on Mother’s Day.

The Rangers were in Houston last Sunday, so Lee joined the club on Friday to recognize her extraordinary commitment in the battle against breast cancer.

This one was truly extraordinary, with a mother and daughter going through chemotherapy and waging the same battle at the same time. They both enjoyed the Rangers' game against the Cardinals being cancer free. But it wasn’t easy.

On the one hand, they were able to support and help each other through the ordeal.

“When you go through something like this, you have a connection,” Allison said. “You understand first-hand what the other person is going through. So, when other people are there to support you and help lift you up, it’s different with somebody who has been through it. They understand how hard it is.”

Mother and daughter talked almost daily, sometimes from one oncology center to another.

“I couldn’t even think about it because my little girl was going through it,” Karen said. “I mean, it was so awful, I worried about her more than I was worried about myself.”

But there were also rough times.

“I think you have to keep a positive attitude,” Allison said. “You have to put on a brave face and a smile and go about your life as best you can. But absolutely, it’s hard. You need people to break down to and cry to, you know.”

That’s what Karen and Allison were to each other. It’s not often that a mother and daughter lose their hair at the same time.

“[For] most of my friends, I put on a good front,” Karen said. “I’d say, 'Yeah, I’m not feeling too bad,’ even though I was really, really sick. Whereas I knew she understood.”

Karen had a lumpectomy and went through chemotherapy. Allison was diagnosed with stage 2 ER/PR+ breast cancer. It was aggressive and growing fairly quickly. She completed eight rounds of chemotherapy, underwent a double mastectomy along with reconstruction and will take tamoxifen for a total of 10 years to minimize the risk of a recurrence.

Allison's parents have moved down here to Frisco -- although everybody still misses Nebraska Cornhuskers football. Allison, a TCU graduate, works for Warner Brothers but is also active in the Susan G. Komen organization and will be there on Saturday in Frisco for the annual Race for the Cure.

“I am alive today because people before me recognized the importance of funding research to find better, more effective treatments for breast cancer,” Allison said.

Her daughter Ashton is 10, and that is on Allison’s mind.

“If nothing else, I want to do what I can to change the future of breast cancer,” Allison said. “So when she is older, the treatment is much easier and she won’t have to go through what we went through.”

For the first time since the Honorary Bat Girl program’s inception in 2009, MLB has partnered with CrowdRise to host a fundraising contest for each of the Honorary Bat Girls to raise money to benefit Stand up to Cancer (SU2C) and Susan G. Komen. The winner of the contest will receive a trip to the 2019 World Series. MLB will donate all funds from the contest to SU2C and Komen.

A trip to the World Series would be a tremendous thrill. But Allison and her family just enjoyed being with the Rangers on Friday night.

“This is the most incredible experience,” Allison said. “That’s one thing with cancer, going through that experience taught me to appreciate life and live life to its fullest. You never know when that is going to change on a dime. We try to do a good job of traveling and experiencing life and doing things together as a family. This is amazing, this is the ultimate experience.”