Life calls a timeout, and Antioch's Fox adjusts

Like any other returning starter from last basketball season, Antioch senior Weston Fox had big plans for this year.

A 6-foot-4 center, Fox worked on his game last summer, got bigger, got stronger and had high hopes for what he could contribute to the team.

Now, the expectations he has for himself are a little different.

"One time, I ran the clock at practice really well," Fox said. "And I always seem to clap at the right times.

"I try to get water for the guys at games."

Fox was chuckling as he said this.

"You have to have a sense of humor about it," Fox said.

It's the same sense of humor he used to relieve the worries of his family as he came out of surgery in early October. Brain surgery.

Fox had a tumor removed from the front, right side of his brain. Thankfully, it was benign. But the recovery process from such a major and complicated surgery is extensive, and it has rendered him benched for the rest of his high school career.

Fox, also a tight end, was unable to play any football in the fall, and he'll sit the entire basketball season this winter, helping the team in more of a managerial role instead.

Even gym class is out of the question.

"It's been hard," Fox said. "It's a big blow not being able to play anything, especially senior year. Sports has always been in my life. It's been a release, it's been how I deal with things. And I think our (basketball) team has the chance to have a really nice season. I was looking forward to being a part of that.

"But brain surgery is kind of a big deal. There's a lot of trauma there and a big thing about the recovery is that you don't want to do a lot of straining over overexerting. That could cause you to go back to square one with swelling and all kinds of problems."

It was only recently that Fox was even allowed to return to school. He'd attended the first nine days of school, then had a seizure that led to his diagnosis and then finally came back to classes the week before Thanksgiving.

"The only thing I was doing for the longest time (after the seizure and surgery) was taking walks," Fox said. "I would take walks with my mom. She would say that walking was my new fall sport.

"I wasn't doing much. I couldn't drive, couldn't focus that much. I was tired and there was swelling in my head."

It was swelling in Fox's head - accidental swelling, no less - that led to the discovery of the tumor.

Over the summer, Fox dove into a pool that was only 8 feet deep and he hit his head on the bottom. He was OK, but his head ached.

Little did he know that he suffered serious trauma to his brain and it began to swell. Eventually, it was unable to swell further because the tumor was in the way.

On Sept. 2, about two weeks after the pool incident, Fox suffered a seizure during the middle of the night.

"It was scary because I first went to Condell and they did a CAT scan and found a mass in my right frontal lobe and then all of a sudden I was being transferred to Lutheran General," Fox said. "They couldn't tell if it was a bruise or a cyst or a tumor.

"I had to wait a week and then I went back for them to do a biopsy."

During that excruciating week, Fox had to grapple with the unknown. Did he have brain cancer? Was it just a bruise from his hit in the pool?

"You have to have a lot of faith," Fox said. "You're just trusting that whatever is supposed to happen will happen, and you try to feel better from all the support you're getting from your family."

Although the tumor, which turned out to have been in Fox's brain since birth, turned out to be benign, Fox wasn't out of the woods yet. Doctors scheduled him for brain surgery a few weeks later. They wanted to remove the tumor, because it could continue to grow and eventually compromise motor skills and even his personality.

Doctors planned to make an eight-inch incision from Fox's ear to the middle of his forehead along his hairline to remove the golf ball-size tumor. The surgery takes about four hours.

"It was really nice that the tumor was benign. I can't even imagine what it's like for the people who have tumors that are malignant," Fox said. "But the surgery was still scary. Anytime anyone is going to get into your head, it's scary.

"There were some moments where I definitely thought about what if I didn't make it. That's quite a thought."

Certainly not a thought that an 18-year-old should have.

"It makes a whole lot of things seem small," Fox said.

Even things such as missing all of football season, and all of basketball season, and a quarter of the school year.

The good news is, Fox will be able to play sports again, in the backyard, on an intramural team in college. He just needs to give his body, and his brain time to fully heal. By next year, he should be as good as new.

"I'm just glad I'll be able to be competitive again," Fox said. "I wish I could have played this season. I was excited and ready to really take off. But considering the circumstances, this isn't so bad.

"When people hear the word tumor, they get really worried and upset. But my doctors told me, 'If you're going to have a tumor, this is the kind to have.' I had the best possible outcome, and now that I'm back at school, I'll still get to have fun with the team. It just won't be on the court."

pbabcock@dailyherald.com

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