Pennsville’s Cooksey back on soccer field after year-long medical ordeal that led to a ‘season of loss’

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

PENNSVILLE – From now on, every time Karsen Cooksey looks at the calendar the first day of August will forever be known as her “Day of Victory.”

It may be just another day on other calendars, but it should be a national holiday in the Cooksey household for that was the day the Pennsville soccer player left her temporary North Carolina home for good, released from a 12-month medical ordeal that threatened to prematurely end her high school sports career and change her life forever.

Cooksey suffered a debilitating knee injury during a pre-training camp exercise at the start of her sophomore year – right before Casey Slusher’s first preseason practice as the Eagles’ new head coach – but the complications that followed her surgery moved her life into a desperate search for answers and ultimately what she refers to as a “season of loss.”

The surgery went wrong and left the family searching for a miracle. That arrived in the form of four months of Olympic-level therapy at a clinic in Cary, N.C., 6 1/2 hours and 400 miles away from home and friends.

Sure, she lost her sophomore soccer season, but she also missed out getting ready for her oldest sister’s wedding with the girls because of an appointment with the surgeon, the prom and hanging out with her friends, and all the other things that come with being an active teen.

Pretty scary stuff for a 15-year-old who aspired to follow her cousin as a 100-goal scorer for the Eagles, but through a world-renowned doctor and support from her family, teammates and community she avoided a third surgery, got well and is happily back on the field playing the sport she loves.

“It’s a miracle,” says Karsen’s mom Michelle, who doesn’t use the term lightly as Children’s Ministries Coordinator for Lifehouse Church in Townsend, Del.

A miracle is defined as an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs and it certainly applies as the Cookseys were definitely at a financial and emotional wits end as they fretted over their youngest daughter’s circumstances.

‘Knew’ something was wrong

It all started in a summer team camp before the start of official varsity practice when Karsen, the Eagles’ top goal-scorer as a freshman, hyperextended her knee during a simple passing drill. It was the same knee she initially hurt in a basketball game at Clayton that February.

She spent five weeks doing rehab before her doctor decided on surgery. The first surgery was performed in Delaware Oct. 23, an arthroscopic procedure designed to repair the injury, and it didn’t take long for the family to realize something was wrong.

“People usually get up and start walking after meniscus (surgery), but the pain was like crazy,” Karsen said. “I couldn’t put my toes on the ground. A week went by and it was awful. 

“I couldn’t do the normal things like straighten it, move it, put pressure on it. It was just all messed up.”

Four days after the operation she was back in the hospital. X-rays and ultrasounds were inconclusive, but an MRI revealed something disturbing. The pictures the family saw showed a nerve attached to the repaired meniscus. 

A second surgery was performed in Delaware Dec. 3 to “decompress the nerve.” All seemed well two days after the operation, but a few days later Karsen’s leg began shaking and then shaking violently and she was back in the hospital for another week. She was in a wheelchair from December to February, but at least she was home for Christmas and didn’t miss the Eagles winning the Super Bowl – on her birthday.

To complicate matters, all the medicine she was taking in an effort to quiet the nerve was starting to attack her system. There was talk of removing organs. She was back in the hospital in March. 

“So many things were going wrong, I guess we just didn’t even really know,” Karsen said.

The family started looking for other options, among them a trip to Baltimore for a second opinion at Johns Hopkins. 

“I had a lot of people throwing a lot of things our way and they were some big, big, big scary things and I never had a peace about any of them,” Michelle said. “I was just like, ‘Lord, please close doors that we should not walk through and open ones that are for us.’”

Finally, eldest sister Taylor, a medical professional, found Dr. David Pascal in part through a series of social media videos and testimonials from the world-class athletes he has treated in the past.

He could fix this, not through surgery or drugs but his technique of “quantum neurology.” But it would require the family pulling up stakes and moving to North Carolina.

According to his bio on the Institute website, Pascal, a chiropractor, specializes in severe neurologic injury, focusing on identifying the root causes of health issues and developing personalized treatment plans that promise long-term healing. He has treated track Olympians, world-class gymnasts, pro golfers and pro volleyball players.

On March 11, Michelle’s birthday, they were driving back from the hospital when the call came from the Pascal Health Institute that they’d see her. “The best birthday present ever,” Michelle said.

They left for North Carolina April 21.

Outpouring of support

The treatment wasn’t cheap and not covered by insurance, but the family had a lot of help to make ends meet. Dad Kirk quickly sold the family boat, a retirement gift to himself after a long career in local law enforcement, to get the financial ball rolling. It sold two hours after the listing drew multiple buyers. “Right then and there we knew something was headed in the right direction,” Kirk said.

Friends quietly set up a GoFundMe page that raised more than $41,000 in two days. Trinity United Methodist Church in Pennsville offered to take care of the apartment the family would have to live in while Karsen was undergoing treatment.

“It was one miracle after another that my little mind still can’t even fathom,” Michelle said.

The treatments were twice-a-day, two hours a day. It was an exhausting schedule, but there were some diversions.

Their apartment was next to the WakeMed Soccer Park, home of the North Carolina Courage of the National Women’s Soccer League. Karsen visited often and received encouragement from several players from the Courage and Orlando Pride during her treatment and recovery, and remains friends with several of them. She went to watch the Pride play in Washington, D.C., Saturday.

One of the milestone days was July 8, the day they took her crutches away. But she still had three more weeks of therapy. 

She was released from the Institute Aug. 1, the Day of Victory, and came back home with the doctor’s caution of maybe returning to the field next year. But all her fears were finally behind her and she was looking forward to future.

“I think I was probably more worried about walking again than whether I’d play soccer,” Karsen said. “I think if I never found Dr. Pascal I’d probably still be in a wheelchair.”

She returned to normal activities almost as soon as she got home, and that included lightly practicing with her Pennsville teammates.

Back in the game

The year before Cooksey got hurt, she was the Eagles’ leading scorer with 14 goals. The team scored only 30 goals in the year she missed – 13 of them in two games – and no one scored more than nine. This year, they are 8-6 and go into this week looking to solidify the program’s first winning season in 2022 and a prime position in the South Jersey Group I tournament

She was back in the game for the first time in 23 months on Sept. 29 as the last-minute starting goalie in a predictively low-impact game against Buena and even made two saves in an easy shutout. She was back at it the next day against Salem Tech and, after texting her reluctant mom during the game for permission to play in the field, scored the team’s fifth goal in a 9-0 rout.

It was her first goal since she scored a hat trick Oct. 23, 2023 – against Salem Tech – but it meant so much more than any goal she’s ever scored in her life.

“I was excited,” Karsen said.

“That one goal this year means more to us than the 100 because it’s victory,” Michelle said. “The 100 aren’t important because the one means she’s walking. The 100 doesn’t mean anything if there’s not true victory behind it, and that one is victory. 

“It means there’s no wheelchair. It means we’ve persevered, we’ve had joy. That one is the win.”

Mom admitted the ordeal had them all reorienting their perspective on sports, but Karsen is thinking about her future. She probably won’t play basketball again, but is thinking about playing softball. She was a catcher, but that constant crouching puts a strain, so that’s probably out; plus, the Eagles have a pretty good one already. They did graduate two outfielders, so there’s an opening.

That’s really all she needs.