After cancer scare, Dewey helping lead Cougars on the court

Emily Dewey admits she has always had a weird hip, but never expected to receive the diagnosis she got last year.

It was determined she had developed a tumour in her left hip.

“I’m naturally very inflexible so I blamed it on that. It ended up just being a lot more than straight-up inflexibility. It was just kind of tightness and pain waking me up in the middle of the night,” Dewey said.

The diagnosis came in August of 2018, just before she was supposed to join the University of Regina Cougars women’s basketball team after playing with the NCAA’s University of Nebraska Omaha Mavericks.

“(Doctors) initially thought that it was a sarcoma, which is cancerous,” Dewey said.

She still doesn’t have the words to describe what she went through when she received the news.

“(I was) thinking at the time that I’ll never be able to play basketball again, which is something that I’ve worked towards for so long in my life,” Dewey said. “It was just kind of having another perspective in life and finding purpose off the court.”

But after months of MRIs and CT scans, Dewey received positive news in October in 2018 — the tumour was benign and could be removed.

“I’ve never been so relieved in my life,” Dewey said. “I immediately asked when I could start playing (basketball again).”

Dewey finally joined the Cougars in January of this year, but had to sit out while recovering. She made her Cougars debut on Oct. 11 in a 67-54 win over the University of Alberta Pandas.

“I can definitely tell you I was shaking out of my body when I first got on that court,” Dewey said. “I had to remind myself that (the basketball court) is where I feel most comfortable. This is where I feel at home.”

Joining the Cougars was a bit of a homecoming for the forward. Originally born in Winnipeg, Dewey moved to the Queen City with her family when she was about five years old.

She spent most of her life in Regina, going to Campbell Collegiate until her Grade 12 year. With her family moving back to Winnipeg, she completed her high school at Westwood Collegiate in the Manitoba capital.

She first began playing basketball in Grade 2, with her mom being the inspiration behind her career.

“It was just kind of me and my mom’s thing; we would do road trips together and all that stuff. Just being with her made me love basketball overall,” Dewey said.

Despite tearing an ACL during her Grade 12 season, Dewey went south to the U.S. to play a year with the Mavericks, an experience she will always remember.

“It was definitely eye-opening and I think I grew a lot from it. I miss my teammates a ton from down there,” Dewey said.

“I remember the first couple games just having all the stuff pre-game and all the things we would get during the game and the mandatory timeouts for commercials. It was really, really different.”

But Dewey decided she had more opportunities to grow as a player and person by coming back to Canada and joining the Cougars.

“(It was) just the overall environment and everything. I honestly love it here and I love the program,” Dewey said. “When I first made my decision to leave (Nebraska), this was the first and only place I was looking to come back to.”

Dewey is the Cougars’ leading scorer so far this Canada West season, averaging 12.9 points a game. The Cougars currently sit at 3-5 after an off-season that saw three of their top players leave the U of R: Carolina Goncalves as well as Kyia and Kyanna Giles.

“We’ve definitely had to handle a different type of adversity this year. We’ve got three or four pretty serious injuries happening on the team right now. We started off with low numbers and we feel like we keep getting lower and lower,” Dewey said.

“It hasn’t taken a toll on us mentally or anything like that. The games are definitely hard being down players and being down some talent with the players that are out.”

Despite the adversity and injuries, Dewey said the team has become a more tight-knit unit as a result of it.

“I’ve never been happier on a team before in my life and these girls are just so amazing. I’m actually just so blessed to be playing with them every single day,” Dewey said.

The Cougars are to host the Pandas on Friday and Saturday night. Tipoff for both games at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health and Sport is set for 6 p.m.