College wrestling: Crystal Lake Central grad Kielbasa optimistic after cyst on brain is drained

For the first time since Joey Kielbasa was 4 years old, he is not sweating and grinding and putting every ounce of effort into wrestling.

Disappointing as it is, Kielbasa accepts that.

The 2011 Crystal Lake Central graduate would prefer to be in Central Michigan’s wrestling room, pushing his roommate, Chippewas nationally ranked 141-pounder Zach Horan. It hurts Kielbasa to see his buddies working and drilling and competing.

But there is a payoff – because there are things Kielbasa will miss other than wrestling. Like the persistent headaches that sometimes limited him to a couple of hours of sleep a night. Or the nose bleeds. Or the nausea. Or sitting in a classroom and feeling as if his chair was swaying back and forth.

An arachnoid cyst that was pressing on Kielbasa’s left frontal lobe was drained Dec. 15, alleviating the irritating symptoms he had experienced for about two years. Already, Kielbasa can tell a difference in his mental capacity.

After two years of battling the headaches and fatigue, which also carried over to his wrestling performances, the three-time Class 2A state champion is on the road to recovery. By June, he plans on being back in the Chippewas’ wrestling room to prepare for one final season of wrestling.

He’ll work his way back to optimum shape. He’ll sleep soundly. He’ll have energy again. He’ll return to living as he knew it before.

“I feel a lot better. My cognitive process is better, my vocab, all that stuff was going out the window a little bit,” Kielbasa said. “I’m just glad this is over and I can go back.”

• • •

Kielbasa finished an outstanding high school career with the Class 2A 152-pound state championship in 2011. He was 167-10 in four seasons and ended his sophomore, junior and senior seasons as a state champ.

He wrestled his freshman year at Central Michigan, then redshirted the next season, although redshirts are still able to compete unattached at most tournaments. It was November 2012 when Kielbasa noticed the headaches starting, although they intensified last year, when he returned to the lineup.

Kielbasa battled a hamstring injury, along with the symptoms from his yet-to-be-revealed cyst, and finished 10-9 at 149 pounds. Twice, he was tested for mononucleosis because of his fatigue.

“He wasn’t able to compete at the level he thought he should have been competing at,” said Joe Kielbasa, Joey’s father. “You hurt your knee or shoulder, you know that’s hurt. You get these symptoms, you don’t know.”

Finally, when Joey returned to Crystal Lake after working out with teammates all summer in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, he saw a neurologist and had an MRI. A handball-size cyst was found and everything began making sense.

Medical personnel explained to Joe and Julie Kielbasa that Joey, their second of three children, likely had the cyst since birth. Joe said about 1 percent of people have such cysts, but without the symptoms they often go undetected.

“It was a big relief when he found out because he knew something wasn’t right,” Joe said.

Joe said Joey’s neurosurgeon, Dr. Fady Charbel at the University of Illinois-Chicago Hospital, said the cyst could have grown and started pressing against Joey’s left lobe because of the banging through his years of wrestling.

“[The cyst] was probably just there. Something caused it to get bigger and create the symptoms,” Joe said. “Their thinking is now that the brain will occupy the space where the cyst was. If it’s smaller, it’s not pushing against a blood vessel and you may not have symptoms.”

The Kielbasas got the MRI results in late August and Joey, instead of missing school during his recovery period, opted to have surgery during his Christmas break.

On Dec. 15, Charbel and his surgical team made a 3-inch incision on the left side of Joey’s head, just in front of his ear, and drained the cyst while cutting away some of the webbing. It was explained to the Kielbasas that the cyst will no longer catch the fluid, in essence draining itself.

• • •

In August, Joe Kielbasa told his son to prepare for the worst.

“He said, ‘You could be done with wrestling forever,’ ” Joey said. “He wanted to be sure I handled myself if [the doctor] told me I couldn’t wrestle again. We go in and he said, ‘You can get back on the mat after surgery.’ I was excited after that.”

There were still three-plus months of discomfort while waiting for the surgery, but that prognosis was all Joey needed to hear. They knew what was wrong and knew it could be fixed.

The mornings of waking up and trying to convince himself he was not exhausted would end.

Joey lifted weights in an effort to maintain some semblance of physical shape. He tried not to think about wrestling as much, instead focusing on his three majors – computer science, logistics and marketing.

Even that was difficult.

“The hardest part was the study process,” Kielbasa said. “Most people study the night before. I would go to sleep early and wake up at 4 in the morning to study for a test. I would lose my memory when I went to sleep, I’d have bad headaches. I wouldn’t be able to comprehend the material, so I got up at 4, made a cup of coffee and started studying.”

Kielbasa finished with a 3.0 GPA for the semester. But some of his friends still were not aware of his physical problem and why he was not wrestling. Kielbasa didn’t want the sympathy for that, just like he didn’t want to hear “Sorry you lost” after matches.

On Dec. 14, he posted on his Facebook page about his upcoming surgery the next day.

“My best friend since I was 4 years old is [former Crystal Lake Central wrestler] Gage Harrah,” Kielbasa said. “He found out a month before I was having surgery through my family. He was all ticked at me.”

• • •

Kielbasa likely could gain another year of eligibility from the NCAA if he wanted. In cases where athletes have used a redshirt year and are injured, they often are allowed a sixth year to compete.

But Kielbasa does not expect to do that. He’s on schedule to graduate in 2016 and is fine with having one final season.

This week, his doctor said he could resume jogging. He’s lifting light weights and soon will be able to go heavier. He would love to get back into the wrestling room and help Horan on his road to the NCAA Championships, which will be in March. But Joe convinced him that might be pushing it a bit.

So Kielbasa will continue focusing on classes and easing back into shape, preparing to go all out six months post-surgery.

“I want to start in the summer,” he said. “Usually you get a month off in the summer. I want to just get on the mat and wrestle all the way up to nationals. I don’t want to take any time off. I’ve missed all this time.”

He vows to approach his final season with a renewed zest.

“I’m not really mad about losing a year. It gave me more fire,” Joey said. “It put more logs in my stomach. When you’ve been doing it for 18 years, you get burnt mentally. This next year, I’ll have a full thing of logs burning because I missed that year. This is my last year ever, so … I feel like this is going to be an exciting year.”

HIs father concurs.

“Dealing what he was dealing with, knowing something was wrong, but not really knowing what, it was kind of tough,” Joe said. “He was trying to fight through it. He put up with this for a good year, year-and-a-half.”

For the first time since Joey Kielbasa was 4 years old, he is not sweating and grinding and putting every ounce of effort into wrestling.

Disappointing as it is, Kielbasa accepts that.

The 2011 Crystal Lake Central graduate would prefer to be in Central Michigan’s wrestling room, pushing his roommate, Chippewas nationally ranked 141-pounder Zach Horan. It hurts Kielbasa to see his buddies working and drilling and competing.

But there is a payoff – because there are things Kielbasa will miss other than wrestling. Like the persistent headaches that sometimes limited him to a couple of hours of sleep a night. Or the nose bleeds. Or the nausea. Or sitting in a classroom and feeling as if his chair was swaying back and forth.

An arachnoid cyst that was pressing on Kielbasa’s left frontal lobe was drained Dec. 15, alleviating the irritating symptoms he had experienced for about two years. Already, Kielbasa can tell a difference in his mental capacity.

After two years of battling the headaches and fatigue, which also carried over to his wrestling performances, the three-time Class 2A state champion is on the road to recovery. By June, he plans on being back in the Chippewas’ wrestling room to prepare for one final season of wrestling.

He’ll work his way back to optimum shape. He’ll sleep soundly. He’ll have energy again. He’ll return to living as he knew it before.

“I feel a lot better. My cognitive process is better, my vocab, all that stuff was going out the window a little bit,” Kielbasa said. “I’m just glad this is over and I can go back.”

• • •

Kielbasa finished an outstanding high school career with the Class 2A 152-pound state championship in 2011. He was 167-10 in four seasons and ended his sophomore, junior and senior seasons as a state champ.

He wrestled his freshman year at Central Michigan, then redshirted the next season, although redshirts are still able to compete unattached at most tournaments. It was November 2012 when Kielbasa noticed the headaches starting, although they intensified last year, when he returned to the lineup.

Kielbasa battled a hamstring injury, along with the symptoms from his yet-to-be-revealed cyst, and finished 10-9 at 149 pounds. Twice, he was tested for mononucleosis because of his fatigue.

“He wasn’t able to compete at the level he thought he should have been competing at,” said Joe Kielbasa, Joey’s father. “You hurt your knee or shoulder, you know that’s hurt. You get these symptoms, you don’t know.”

Finally, when Joey returned to Crystal Lake after working out with teammates all summer in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, he saw a neurologist and had an MRI. A handball-size cyst was found and everything began making sense.

Medical personnel explained to Joe and Julie Kielbasa that Joey, their second of three children, likely had the cyst since birth. Joe said about 1 percent of people have such cysts, but without the symptoms they often go undetected.

“It was a big relief when he found out because he knew something wasn’t right,” Joe said.

Joe said Joey’s neurosurgeon, Dr. Fady Charbel at the University of Illinois-Chicago Hospital, said the cyst could have grown and started pressing against Joey’s left lobe because of the banging through his years of wrestling.

“[The cyst] was probably just there. Something caused it to get bigger and create the symptoms,” Joe said. “Their thinking is now that the brain will occupy the space where the cyst was. If it’s smaller, it’s not pushing against a blood vessel and you may not have symptoms.”

The Kielbasas got the MRI results in late August and Joey, instead of missing school during his recovery period, opted to have surgery during his Christmas break.

On Dec. 15, Charbel and his surgical team made a 3-inch incision on the left side of Joey’s head, just in front of his ear, and drained the cyst while cutting away some of the webbing. It was explained to the Kielbasas that the cyst will no longer catch the fluid, in essence draining itself.

• • •

In August, Joe Kielbasa told his son to prepare for the worst.

“He said, ‘You could be done with wrestling forever,’ ” Joey said. “He wanted to be sure I handled myself if [the doctor] told me I couldn’t wrestle again. We go in and he said, ‘You can get back on the mat after surgery.’ I was excited after that.”

There were still three-plus months of discomfort while waiting for the surgery, but that prognosis was all Joey needed to hear. They knew what was wrong and knew it could be fixed.

The mornings of waking up and trying to convince himself he was not exhausted would end.

Joey lifted weights in an effort to maintain some semblance of physical shape. He tried not to think about wrestling as much, instead focusing on his three majors – computer science, logistics and marketing.

Even that was difficult.

“The hardest part was the study process,” Kielbasa said. “Most people study the night before. I would go to sleep early and wake up at 4 in the morning to study for a test. I would lose my memory when I went to sleep, I’d have bad headaches. I wouldn’t be able to comprehend the material, so I got up at 4, made a cup of coffee and started studying.”

Kielbasa finished with a 3.0 GPA for the semester. But some of his friends still were not aware of his physical problem and why he was not wrestling. Kielbasa didn’t want the sympathy for that, just like he didn’t want to hear “Sorry you lost” after matches.

On Dec. 14, he posted on his Facebook page about his upcoming surgery the next day.

“My best friend since I was 4 years old is [former Crystal Lake Central wrestler] Gage Harrah,” Kielbasa said. “He found out a month before I was having surgery through my family. He was all ticked at me.”

• • •

Kielbasa likely could gain another year of eligibility from the NCAA if he wanted. In cases where athletes have used a redshirt year and are injured, they often are allowed a sixth year to compete.

But Kielbasa does not expect to do that. He’s on schedule to graduate in 2016 and is fine with having one final season.

This week, his doctor said he could resume jogging. He’s lifting light weights and soon will be able to go heavier. He would love to get back into the wrestling room and help Horan on his road to the NCAA Championships, which will be in March. But Joe convinced him that might be pushing it a bit.

So Kielbasa will continue focusing on classes and easing back into shape, preparing to go all out six months post-surgery.

“I want to start in the summer,” he said. “Usually you get a month off in the summer. I want to just get on the mat and wrestle all the way up to nationals. I don’t want to take any time off. I’ve missed all this time.”

He vows to approach his final season with a renewed zest.

“I’m not really mad about losing a year. It gave me more fire,” Joey said. “It put more logs in my stomach. When you’ve been doing it for 18 years, you get burnt mentally. This next year, I’ll have a full thing of logs burning because I missed that year. This is my last year ever, so … I feel like this is going to be an exciting year.”

HIs father concurs.

“Dealing what he was dealing with, knowing something was wrong, but not really knowing what, it was kind of tough,” Joe said. “He was trying to fight through it. He put up with this for a good year, year-and-a-half.”