Ellie Masterson Doesn't Have to Look Far to Find Inspiration
Everybody needs a hero or someone to look up to. For South Carolina senior swimmer Ellie Masterson, her mother, Melissa, who is a breast cancer survivor living with metastatic cancer, is that hero, or better yet, shero.
Ellie and Melissa Masterson
“She’s a huge fighter,” said Masterson, a sport and entertainment management major, who grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. “She inspires me a lot in the pool. I’ll be thinking, if my mom can do what she’s doing, then I can finish this 200 breaststroke or whatever. Whatever I’m going through is not half of what she is feeling or going through, so I want to do it for her. It’s great to have her at swim meets. I always love swimming well and then looking up in the stands and seeing her.
“She doesn’t let us worry about her very much. I just want to make her proud. It wouldn’t say it’s a distraction. It’s a motivator because I want her to be able to see what I can do and be proud of me in the pool. I know both my parents are.”
Melissa Masterson was originally diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in August of 2015, and Ellie said it’s been a recurring battle.
“She went through a couple of rounds of chemotherapy and radiation and had a double mastectomy and did a little more radiation after that, I think,” Masterson said. “She was done with treatments around April 2016 and had reconstruction surgery. She was cancer-free for about four years. She was having a lot of back pain, and that’s when they found that the cancer had spread into her bones in her back. So now she’s metastatic, which is stage four. Now they try to keep it contained, and they’ve done a good job of that the last couple of years.
“My parents tried to keep it from me when she was diagnosed in 2020 because it was right before SECs my sophomore year. It was really tough at first. That’s when COVID hit, and as terrible as that was, it was kind of a blessing because I went back home and ended up staying home the whole summer. It was nice to be able to be there for my mom because she was going through a lot of treatment. We couldn’t go to the hospital to sit with her for treatments due to COVID, but at least I could be at home.”
“I would love to be half as great as my mom is.”
Masterson finds inspiration in her mother’s strength in continuing to battle and remain positive.
“Sometimes I totally forget she has cancer because most of the time she just wants to be a mom,” Masterson said. “You’d have no idea that she has cancer. The goal is to keep it contained where it is. She has chemo every three weeks for a few hours and then some scans. I don’t know what the prognosis is. With metastatic cancer, it doesn’t go away. The goal is to keep it where it is for as long as possible. Right now, she looks totally normal. She’s a very active mom.”
While her family participates in some breast cancer awareness fundraising at home in Louisville, Masterson and her Gamecock teammates have an annual tradition of recognizing breast cancer survivors at one of their meets.
“We’ve done it every year since I’ve been here,” Masterson said. “Anyone on the team who has someone they want to recognize for having had breast cancer, we recognize them at the meet. One year we did caps, this year we had shirts. We get a little flower and give that to the swimmer if their person wasn’t able to be here or give it to the breast cancer survivor if they’re able to be here. I think we had six or seven people on the team who had someone they wanted to recognize this year. We’ll put pictures of them (cancer survivors) in the hallway, and we’ll call out the names of people to recognize them at the meet.
Andrew, Ellie and Melissa Masterson
“Metastatic breast cancer is one of the lowest funded cancers. The more we talk about it, the more it can help raise awareness of it. It’s a nice tradition for the team. We talk a lot about ‘sheroes’ and the women in our lives that are battling breast cancer really are sheroes. My mom definitely is!”
This year, the cancer survivors were recognized at the dual meet against Queens on October 29, which the Gamecocks won, and Masterson was the winner in the 400 Individual Medley.
“My mom comes ever year,” Masterson said. “She loves swimming. My mom is the swim mom. She comes to all my meets. I have three younger brothers at home, so my dad (Andrew) would sometimes stay with them, but my mom always comes.”
The swimming and diving team is also a regular participant in the American Cancer Society’s annual Relay for Life on Campus.
There have been tough times along the way, such as when the pain in her mom’s back made it difficult to even walk to the mailbox, and another instance where she had to have two liters of fluid drained from her lungs.
“She had an oxygen tank at our house, and I had to help her get dressed,” Masterson recalled. “Since she’s been on the new chemo regimen, it’s been fine. She comes and hangs out with us on weekends. We’re always out on the boat in the summer. She is doing very well, or at least, she makes me think she is doing very well. She wouldn’t tell me very often if she wasn’t doing well.
“When I came to college I discovered a new-found appreciation for my parents. Granted, they have gotten a lot cooler since I’ve been in school. I’m definitely a lot closer to my mom than I was in high school. I’m now realizing how similar I am to my mom, and it’s kind of freaky. I would love to be half as great as my mom is. She does so much for us.”
For Melissa Masterson, when she’s not traveling to watch Ellie swim or sitting through a treatment, she spends a lot of time with her hobby: needlepoint.
“She loves making belts for my brothers and my dad,” Masterson said. “We have a whole Christmas tree in our house that is designated just for her needlepoint ornaments. It keeps growing. She has made me and my roommates little key chains. She makes pillows. She needlepoints a lot! She might be up there doing it at meets! She made Coach (Jeff Poppell) a belt.
“Swimming is kind of our thing, and when I’m done swimming, I don’t know what’s going to be our thing after. Taylor Swift concerts, maybe?”
