Sidelined by a brain tumor, 13-year-old relies on faith, grit to get back in game she loves
ATLANTA - At 13, Carley Krokey of Dallas, Georgia has been playing softball since she was 9.
"I've just been a really competitive person," Krokey says.
Competitive and fast.
Carley Krokey, a 13-year-old elite softball player from Dallas, Georgia, was diagnosed with a large brain tumor in 2023. She has made a full recovery and is back on the field with her team.
"She is the fastest girl on the team," Will Krokey, Carley's father, says. "She's one of the fastest girls that we even see in the league. And, her strength level is just through the roof. I mean, she's got a cannon of an arm.
The oldest of Will and Courtney Krokey's 5 kids, Carley is a straight-A student, her father says, and leads her travel softball team in stolen bases every year.
"I think the most she's had in one season was 37," Will Krokey says.
Carley Krokey, a 13-year-old elite softball player from Dallas, Georgia, was diagnosed with a large brain tumor in 2023. She has made a full recovery and is back on the field with her team.
Crippling brain tumor diagnosis
But in the days leading up to Carley Krokey's 12th birthday in late January 2023, something felt off.
She was hit by crippling headaches for 5 days in a row.
A pediatrician diagnosed Krokey with strep, and her parents kept her home from school for 3 days.
However, Will Krokey says she was getting worse, not better.
Carley Krokey, a 13-year-old elite softball player from Dallas, Georgia, was diagnosed with a large brain tumor in 2023. She has made a full recovery and is back on the field with her team.
"She'd wake up almost like clockwork at around one in the morning, and she wouldn't be feeling well," he says. "And she, most of the time, she would throw up."
Then the night before her birthday, at about 10:30 p.m., Carley Krokey woke up again.
"She was sitting on our bed crying, and she was kind of, like, rocking back and forth," her dad says.
"I remember that," she says. "And then, I just don't remember anything."
Her parents tried to ask her questions, growing alarmed, but Krokey stopped responding to them.
"She was just rocking and just staring," Will Krokey remembers. "And, so, I said to her, 'Carley, are you okay?' And she wouldn't respond."
Carley Krokey remembers bits and pieces of that night.
Courtney and Carley Krokey pose for a phone in her hospital room at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
"I remember seeing their faces, and then everything just went dark," she says.
Hours later, Carley Krokey was airlifted unconscious from her local hospital to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite.
That is where Will Krokey got the news.
"Panic, and panic and fear were probably the best two words," he says.
Dr. Barun Brahma, a Children's Healthcare pediatric neurosurgeon, broke the news to Will Krokey.
An MRI showed Carley had a large mass in the back of her brain.
"A lot of tumors that set up in the back part of the brain, in the posterior fossa, block up the normal fluid pathway of the brain," Dr. Brahma says. So, a lot of times, the symptoms that you see are just from this massive buildup of fluid."
Carley Krokey's MRI shows a large mass in the back of her brain.
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta operates on girl with brain tumor
Carley Krokey would need two surgeries: an emergency operation that night to place a drain to relieve the pressure on her brain, and another major surgery a few days later, this one to remove the mass.
"I was scared," Krokey says. "I thought I would feel everything whenever I woke up, and I didn't think I was going to wake up at that point."
Her father tried to reassure her.
"I just kept telling her, "You can't think like that; just keep praying,'" Will Krokey says.
Coming out of her second operation, the big one, Carley Krokey says she felt relieved.
"I was still here, and I could go back at softball at some point," she says.
"For her, that was the most serious question in the world:
'When am I back on the field,'" her father laughs.
Samples of Carley Krokey's tumor were sent off for testing to determine whether it was malignant or benign.
"We got the pathology back about a week later," Will Krokey says. "It was benign, which was incredible."
Getting back on her feet would require physical therapy, weeks of inpatient, and outpatient rehabilitation at Children's.
Will and Carley Krokey (Krokey family photo)
"She couldn't take two steps without stumbling, because she just couldn't control the right side of her body," her father says.
The rehab team urged Krokey to take things slowly, to rebuild her strength gradually.
That advice did not work for her.
"Because I like going fast," Krokey smiles. "I can't go slow."
12-year-old softball player recovering from brain tumor
By March, she was back at practice.
In April, Krokey started her first game with applause from her team, and the opposing players.
"She's such a tough kid," Dr. Brahma says. "She's learned a lot of things about herself, about how tough she is, from all of this."
Carley Krokey leaned into her faith, and her grit, to find her way back.
The experience left her with a profound lesson.
"Just to never quit, because quitting is just not an option at that point," Krokey says.
In May 2023, follow-up scans revealed the tumor in her brain was gone, the scar tissue nearly invisible.
Fourteen months after her ordeal began, life has returned to normal.
Carley Krokey, a 13-year-old elite softball player from Dallas, Georgia, was diagnosed with a large brain tumor in 2023. She has made a full recovery and is back on the field with her team. (Krokey family photo)
"I feel great," she says.
Carley Krokey is right where she wants to be.
"I hope I keep playing," she says. "I've been hoping that they make a professional softball league like the MLB. So, then I can keep playing as far as my life goes."