Beating The Odds

She is the sweet, diminutive girl everyone knows. Kennedy Russell is recognized throughout Toombs County and the surrounding area as a young lady who has overcome adversity to serve as an inspiration to others. As pretty on the inside as she is outside, the 17-year-old multi-sport athlete was named Homecoming Princess at Robert Toombs Christian Academy in Lyons recently, just another amazing step in a young life that might never have been.

Russell was not expected to live for very long after she was born with bladder exstrophy, a condition in which her bladder was outside of her body. She underwent her first surgery when she was just a few hours old and has endured 15 more since then to reconstruct her pelvis and bladder. At one point during the ordeal, she was placed in a full body cast and had to learn to walk again.

“I remember a good bit of my childhood,” she says. “The majority of the things that were not pleasant, I have blocked out.”

Among the unpleasant memories are painful procedures she would undergo each month and having to spend so much time in the hospital. She recalls during one hospital stay that she went to a playroom where she played air hockey. Her doctors came in and told her that if she could beat them, they would let her go home.

“I ended up beating all three of them,” she says.

Her parents were given little hope of Kennedy living a full life, much less ever participating in sports. But they never gave up.

“Medicine is constantly changing, and medical miracles happen every day,” says Kennedy’s mother, Ginger Russell.

Still, Kennedy was raised like any other girl. Her mom, who had gone to college on a softball scholarship, coached Kennedy’s teams in soccer and softball in the recreation leagues and taught her to play, despite not being able to rotate her hips. Many times her mother would help keep her condition secret by using medical braces when she played sports. Kennedy often had to remain at home and was unable to attend school with her friends. Still, she managed to attend church every Sunday, sometimes in a wheel chair, just hours after being discharged from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.

As she started high school, she faced a new obstacle. One of the 13 medicines she was taking each day caused short-term memory loss, which made her grades suffer.

In 2010, Kennedy had surgery to reconstruct her bladder and abdominal muscles, which added flexibility and enabled her to grow more than an inch in height. Her most recent doctor’s report stated that she “is the epitome of excellence for individuals with her disease” and that “her life expectancy has increased to 80 years.” Doctors also took her off of the harmful medication, which gave her better memory. They call her the poster child for the condition because she has improved so much. Should she remain healthy, she will not have to undergo any more procedures (unless the U.S. Food and Drug administration approves something new).

She is now looking at college next fall and wants to get a degree in business and marketing or possibly go into education like her father, Justin Russell, who is the principal at Claxton High School.

This summer, she participated in the FCA Cheer Camp at Georgia Southern University. By the end of camp, she had memorized the whole routine and was at the top of the cheer pyramid being flipped around. The girl who was never expected to participate in sports, nor live to see her 18th birthday, had now become the flyer for the cheer squad.

She was a member of the Lady Crusaders softball team this season and has begun competition cheer this year to go along with sprit cheer. She is also looking forward to playing soccer in the spring.

Kennedy will turn 18 in May, an age she was never expected to reach, but she has overcome every obstacle thrown in her way.

“Kennedy came into the world a fighter, and her determination carries on even today,” her mother says. “Kennedy is defying all of the odds she faced at birth.”

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Special Feature

Kennedy Russell

Robert Toombs Christian Academy

by Rob Asbell

Beating the Odds