Despite facing an inoperable brain tumor, Lindsey Arnold is remembered for her positive attitude and contagious laugh by friends and family.
Arnold, a Ball State University sophomore, died Sunday at her home in Monroe after battling intrinsic pontine glioma for nearly a year. The cancer affects breathing, body movements and heart rate and can cause numbness, Laura Arnold, her mother, said.
"What's weird is it is a childhood tumor that kids get around eight to 12 years old," Laura Arnold said.
Lindsey Arnold, 21, began to feel numbing in her fingertips last November, which she and her family wrote off as carpal tunnel syndrome - a condition that can cause tingling and numbing in the hands, Laura Arnold said. The numbness, however, spread quickly to her leg and thigh during Winter Break.
Lindsey Arnold was taken to a hospital in Fort Wayne for an MRI, where doctors determined there was a mass on her brain and decided to send her to Cincinnati. There, she received radiation and chemotherapy for three months, which caused the tumor to shrink by 52 percent, Laura Arnold said. When her chemotherapy ended, the radiation remained in her body for six weeks, but the mass grew back to normal size.
"She never seemed like the tumor got to her," sophomore Melissa Eckrote said. "She was still doing pilates through chemotherapy and radiation while she was in the hospital in Cincinnati."
Eckrote was one of Lindsey Arnold's close friends and often visited her in the hospital and at home.
After leaving Cincinnati to go to Riley Children's Hospital, doctors told Lindsey Arnold in July there was nothing they could do and gave her two weeks to live. She was taken home where she was cared for by her family.
"I spent a lot of time running errands with the family, and we would go down there once a week or more," sophomore Julie Hart said.
Lindsey Arnold, a psychology major, was a member of the Kappa Delta sorority and a member of the Student Volunteer Services.
"She was the girl that was always smiling and could warm up a room without saying anything," sorority President Michele Faroh said.
Eckrote said that Lindsey Arnold helped her to become more outgoing and also contributed to her becoming Catholic.
"She helped me develop in my faith, religion, socially and personally with confidence issues," Eckrote said.
Eckrote and Hart agree that Lindsey's positive personality created many moments worth remembering.
"She made me laugh, and we were always laughing," Eckrote said. "She was never depressed, and that is what I loved about her."
Laura Arnold said she couldn't describe her daughter in one word, but she said words such as caring, loving and giving come to her mind. She was definitely a gift from God, she said.
"In the last two weeks, she did what I call redemptive suffering, and what I mean by that is she brought a lot of people to prayer that maybe hadn't prayed before," Laura Arnold said.
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