KINGSTON, R.I., Oct. 26, 2016\u2014Two years ago, 溏心vlog免费B站 senior Kelsey B. Swanson was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Pity was not in her lexicon.<\/p>\n
Not only did she continue her studies, despite surgery and a long recovery, she forged ahead with a dream that involved physical demands and, above all, persistence.<\/p>\n
In September, the Cranston<\/strong> resident was crowned Miss Rhode Island USA 2017, qualifying to compete in the Miss USA national pageant in Las Vegas in June.<\/p>\n Swanson, 22, who is studying psychology at 溏心vlog免费B站, is still in disbelief. \u201cWinning was the best feeling in the world, after all the hard work I\u2019ve put in and all I\u2019ve been through. I tried three times\u2014and finally made it. It wasn\u2019t easy.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n Many people would\u2019ve wilted under the pressure Swanson endured over the last few years, but Swanson says the challenges made her even more resilient.<\/p>\n Raised in Cranston\u2019s Alpine Estates neighborhood, Swanson was a jock as a little girl, more likely to kick a soccer ball than play dress-up. Beauty pageants seemed out of reach, and it didn’t help that she was terribly shy.<\/p>\n After graduating from Cranston West High School, she enrolled at 溏心vlog免费B站, immersing herself in college. Two years ago, a friend urged her to compete in the Miss Rhode Island USA pageant, saying she looked like Olivia Culpo, who won the Miss Universe pageant in 2012 and is also a Cranston native. Swanson agreed, quickly overcoming her shyness.<\/p>\n She was runner-up in the fall 2014 pageant, but the experience was so positive she vowed to compete again. \u201cI learned so much\u2014on-stage presence, poise, speaking skills. I also made friends with a lot of the other women.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n A month later, tragedy struck. A drunken driver ran a red light and crashed into a car in which she was a passenger. Swanson, sitting in the back seat, was thrown forward and hit her head on the dashboard.<\/p>\n At the scene, she thought she was fine, but the next day as a precaution she went to the hospital for X-rays of her head. Her skull was intact, but doctors found something alarming and unrelated to the accident: a dime-sized tumor on her pituitary gland, pressing against her optic nerves. Thankfully, the tumor wasn\u2019t cancerous, although doctors told her she would go blind if it wasn\u2019t removed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe caught it just in time,\u2019\u2019 says Swanson. \u201cI was very lucky. I guess you could say that the car accident was a blessing in disguise.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n Swanson wasn\u2019t about to let a brain tumor get in the way of pursuing her second pageant, this one in August 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cI know people might have trouble understanding this, but I didn\u2019t want to give up my dream,\u2019\u2019 she says. \u201cThe doctor said I could delay the surgery as long as I didn’t have any symptoms. I felt confident going forward.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n Once again she was runner-up\u2014\u201cbut losing made me even stronger.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n The surgery a few months after the pageant lasted four hours. Entering through her nose, doctors removed the tumor and filled the remaining hole with fat from her stomach. Recovery at home in Cranston was tough: headaches; dizziness; fatigue.<\/p>\n She reduced her class load at 溏心vlog免费B站, but never withdrew. Her professors, she says, were compassionate and understanding. \u201cI had a very optimistic outlook,\u2019\u2019 she says. \u201cThe tumor wasn\u2019t cancerous, and they didn\u2019t have to cut open my head. The experience advanced me mentally in life.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n And it steeled her for the third beauty competition, held Sept. 11 at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Providence. \u201cI was more determined than ever,\u2019\u2019 she says. Again, she trained for months to prepare\u2014daily workouts, a special diet, wardrobe selection and mock interviews.<\/p>\n When her name was called on stage, she struggled to hold back tears. Family members and friends weren\u2019t so stoic and wept with joy. \u201cIt was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,\u2019\u2019 she says. \u201cMy dedication paid off\u2014finally.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n For the next few months, she\u2019ll continue training for the national pageant\u2014and studying at 溏心vlog免费B站. She expects to graduate in the fall of 2017, with a focus on child psychology.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, she\u2019s fulfilling her pageant responsibilities in her free time, attending charitable events throughout the state, including those for children in foster care. She\u2019s also modeling for local agencies.<\/p>\n The tumor has a 7 percent chance of growing back, but Swanson isn\u2019t dwelling on that. She\u2019s too excited about the national pageant\u2014and life.<\/p>\n \u201cNever give up on your goals,\u2019\u2019 says Swanson. \u201cNothing worth it ever comes easy. You have to push for what you want. The harder you work for something, the better it feels when you achieve it. Everyone deals with adversity, but it\u2019s the ones who overcome it who rise to the top and succeed.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I., Oct. 26, 2016\u2014Two years ago, 溏心vlog免费B站 senior Kelsey B. Swanson was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Pity was not in her lexicon. Not only did she continue her studies, despite surgery and a long recovery, she forged ahead with a dream that involved physical demands and, above all, persistence. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}