UFC fighter Alexis Davis gets great news on multiple fronts
Alexis Davis is going to be out of action for well more than a year. In a rarity for a professional fighter, that's a good thing.
Davis, a one-time challenger for the UFC women's bantamweight championship, announced Tuesday on Instagram that she is pregnant and expecting her first child on March 14. But just as significantly, Davis said that her 5-year-old niece, Hayden, who was diagnosed earlier this year with Stage 4 neuroblastoma, is making considerable progress.
Neuroblastoma is a type of cancer common in children that attacks nerves that control the heartbeat and blood pressure. The tumor often spreads. The Stage 4 diagnosis indicates that the tumor has spread to distant organs. The five-year survival rate for a child diagnosed at age 5, according to Cancer.gov, is 52 percent.
Davis first learned of her niece's illness the day after her victory over long-time rival Sarah Kaufman at UFC 186 in Montreal on April 25. Hayden is the daughter of Davis' sister, Jessica, and she'd been diagnosed with the disease while Davis was in camp. Her family knew the importance of the fight and didn't want to burden her with such bad news while she was in training.
"Jessica couldn't make my fight and I just figured Hayden was a little sick or something," Davis said. "It wasn't until after the fight that I actually found out. I was heartbroken when I heard it. Hayden, I was there when she was born. I helped to take care of her, and to hear that, it was so hard."
Hayden certainly is by no means out of the woods yet, though her tumor has shrunk. She still faces many obstacles, but Davis said the family is optimistic.
The child's attitude has been tremendous, Davis said, and has given hope to her relatives.
"She's still got one more chemo treatment," Davis said. "This is a very aggressive cancer, so they have to do everything. She's doing chemo, she had surgery and at the end of September, I'll be flying back to Canada because she'll have her bone marrow transplant. After that, she'll have to do radiation.
"I know it's a lot of stuff, but everything has been going really well and the doctors have been impressed by how well she's been doing."
The joy at Hayden's improvement was only increased by the news that Davis learned she's pregnant with her first child. That will keep her from fighting for the rest of the year, though she is still doing some training.
She hopes to return to the cage by the final quarter of 2016. She laughs and admits that she's already thinking ahead to having to cut weight upon her return to competition. Women tend to put on weight after childbirth, but that becomes an extra challenge for a professional athlete who needs to hit a specific weight at a given time.
"Trust me, I've thought about it," Davis said, chuckling, about having to potentially drop more weight than normal upon her return. "Even now, I'm trying to keep up with my training as much as I can now. At this stage, I'm still hitting the bag, I'm still running and I'm still hitting the weights, though obviously not as much as I used to. I want to focus on keeping as healthy as I can during the pregnancy.
"I just kind of have it set in my mind, and I'm pretty determined when I make my mind up to do something, and so I think when I'm ready to fight, I won't have any problem [making weight]."
Hayden's mom, Jessica, is also pregnant again and expecting another child in November. It's an exciting time for the family, which will be that much more exciting if Hayden continues her progress.
"It's hard to talk about it even now," Davis said of her niece's illness. "Hayden's been so strong and she's laughed and cracked jokes a lot, and that's helped everyone else. We've talked a lot about her cousin and she's wondering if it's going to be a boy or a girl. So she's very excited for me and eager to meet her cousin.
"She's got such a great attitude and she's a little fighter herself. So we're all just hoping that everything keeps on track and we continue to get good news on her."
The family has set up a Go Fund Me page to help with medical expenses.
