CHEERING FOR ARIEL: Community supports Columbus North cheerleader following brain tumor diagnosis

Ariel Roberts was enjoying life as a normal teenager by cheering on her team at athletic events, hanging out with her friends and attending many social gatherings.

Little did Roberts and her family realize that their lives were about to change.

In early January, doctors told the family that Roberts has an embryonal brain tumor that is inoperable. The news shocked Roberts, her parents Todd and Carrie, her sister Coral and the rest of the family.

For Ariel, a junior and varsity cheerleader at Columbus North High School, the long treatment journey has begun.

“I think everyone was in shock,” Carrie Roberts said. “Ariel has been a cheerleader there at North and weeks before that, she had been tumbling during football season and flying too. She’s always been so active and so healthy that it was kind of a shock to everybody.”

Long road ahead

The Roberts family set out to Panama City Beach, Florida during the week of Thanksgiving to enjoy some time with the four of them together. It was their first day settling into Florida that Ariel started having headaches. At first, nobody thought much of it.

On Thanksgiving Day, Ariel experienced a really bad headache that included nausea and vomiting, but quickly her symptoms disappeared later that evening. The next day, she had another headache but no vomiting this time. The family thought it migraines.

To be safe, Ariel visited the doctor the following Monday after Thanksgiving, and the doctor initially thought it was ocular migraines because she had been seeing visual auras. When they went to the optometrist the next day, he didn’t see any fluid behind her eye or any signs of anything concerning.

The headaches still persisted on and off for the next week. They ended up visiting the doctor again and was prescribed a medication to help ease the pain associated with migraines and a CT scan was ordered. Two weeks later and right before Christmas, Ariel had her CT scan, and five days later, the results came back that everything looked fine, and it appeared to be a sinus issue, with a referral to an ear, nose and throat specialist.

On Jan. 1, Ariel had passed out in the kitchen. It scared her family at first, but Ariel woke back up and complained of her ears hurting. The family believed the sinus issues were the cause of it. They notified the doctor of the incident Jan. 3, but didn’t hear back until Jan. 4 that they weren’t concerned and believed it to be the sinus issues. On Jan. 6, Ariel woke up around 4 a.m. vomiting and screaming of really bad pain in the back of her neck. Her parents took her to the emergency room at Columbus Regional Hospital, and that’s ultimately when they found out there was something seriously wrong.

After an MRI, Ariel and her parents were taken by ambulance to Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis to finally receive the answer that been puzzling everyone for the last several weeks.

“We didn’t know at that time it was a tumor,” Carrie said, “they just did an MRI and sent us to Riley.”

At Riley, the doctors gave Ariel another MRI test to make sure that it wasn’t an infection, but then it was discovered she had an inoperable tumor that was too large for the doctors to remove.

During her stay at Riley, on Jan. 10, doctors put in a VP shunt to help drain the fluid from her brain, and then did a biopsy to get a better idea of the next steps for treatment.

“It was pretty devastating,” Carrie Roberts said. “This is not what you think you’re going to hear. Kids have headaches all the time, and to get that information, it was overwhelming. It was a lot for us. (Coral) couldn’t be there because of COVID, so only my husband and I could be there. It was hard for the whole family and extended family, as well. They couldn’t be there to support any of us.”

Ariel mentioned that the doctors asked if they wanted to discuss the diagnosis with her and her parents together or just tell her parents initially. She didn’t want to know what the diagnosis was, so the doctors told her parents who then told her.

“At that point, I knew it wasn’t something good. I kind of knew it was something bad, but I was a little scared to ask,” Ariel said. “I was scared, but I had a lot of help from my parents. They’ve always been in the hospital with me. They never left me there by myself. Whenever they came in, my parents told me, “I’m scared, but we’ve got to do it.”

When Ariel’s biopsy results came back, her parents spoke with the neuro-oncologist on Jan. 19, and it was confirmed that it was an embryonal brain tumor, which is a curable tumor. Samples from the biopsy were sent to the Mayo Clinic to better determine details about her tumor and the treatments needed.

A month ago, Ariel went to a fertility doctor appointment and then had surgery to put a port in place. Ariel also began to experience having seizures, as well.

The family then went to Cincinnati for a consultation appointment and planned to begin proton radiation treatment at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

Show of support

During her hospital visits and doctor appointments over the last several weeks, Ariel tried to live life as a normal teenager. She attended her school’s Winter Formal Jan. 22 with her friends, but almost missed it due to being in the ER after passing out that morning.

“I had already bought my dress and shoes. I was going to go,” Ariel said. “So it ended up my mom texted my friends and let me go with them and sat in the parking lot while I was at the formal, which felt good, it felt normal finally.”

Ariel has also attended a few of the Columbus North basketball games since her diagnosis. There have been fundraisers set up to help the Roberts family with medical expenses. The most recent fundraiser came during the boys basketball game Feb. 24 where decals and “Cheering for Ariel” T-shirts were available. Ariel also got to catch up her friends on the cheer team, and has also gotten support from the Columbus East cheerleaders.

Coral, a student at Indiana University, coaches cheerleading at Royalty Elite in Bloomington and they donated money to help out the family. Ariel has been with the Bull Dogs cheerleading program since she was a freshman.

“The fundraising has been awesome. They’ve done so good with everything,” Ariel said.

In mid-February, the North cheerleaders went to a national cheering competition in Orlando, Florida. The thought of not having Ariel with them was clearly on everyone’s mind and the squad wore ‘Cheering for Ariel’ T-shirts there.

“Everyone was pretty sad and overwhelmed with emotion in the beginning, and they definitely have been putting her first. She’s been on everyone’s mind throughout this whole process,” said North cheerleading coach Sarah Frasier. “It’s been rough. In the beginning, you could definitely tell that Ariel was on their mind at any practice or any game that we did. We’ve really been using her strength and her faith and her spirit in motivating us to continue out with the season.”

Academically, Ariel has been doing school work mostly from home. She did go back to school for one or two classes a day for about a week until her seizures began to appear.

Carrie Roberts said that the school has been amazing in helping the family and accommodating Ariel with her studies. There has been a home school teacher assigned and during long stays at the hospital, Riley and Cincinnati will provide teachers to assist Ariel, she said.

Treatment begins

Monday, Ariel began the first stages of her treatment by heading to Cincinnati for proton beam radiation and some chemotherapy for the next six weeks. She’ll have a four- to six-week break, and then after the break, do another six months of chemo back at Riley. There is the possibly of another surgery after the chemo, but Carrie Roberts said that they’ll have to see where the progress is at before making that determination.

When Ariel’s diagnosis became public, many in the community were reminded of a similar situation that Alana Cook was faced with over six years ago.

In the fall of 2015, Cook was in the seventh grade when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor and underwent many rounds of chemo and radiation treatments. About a year later, Cook was cancer-free and had remained at that status for five years. Cook, who graduated from North last year, is attending Olivet Nazarene and is a manager of the women’s basketball team.

“For Ariel, to her personally, she’s in the middle of a big time in her life. She’s having this in high school,” Cook said. “It may seem like the whole world is changing, and it’s a really difficult stage in her life already. Getting diagnosed with a brain tumor, this type of diagnosis is the hardest thing that she’s probably ever going to go through.”

Since the diagnosis, Carrie Roberts said that the city of Columbus and the community has been amazing supporting the family.

Ariel has received lots of messages and cards and was overwhelmed at how much response and support the community has given her.

“I love every bit of it,” Ariel said. “I didn’t know so many people just supported me that much. It’s been awesome.”