A week before spring break, at the end of softball practice, a red mark started to appear on sophomore Kait Dolan’s left leg. A few minutes later, she noticed the mark was really a red line about 6 inches long. It looked like a long, deep scratch, but every delicate stroke of the finger to the area brought a throbbing pain.

With a week to go before the softball team’s spring trip to Florida, Dolan was diagnosed with only an infection, which was somewhat common and treatable. Her mind now more at ease, she went back to her normal daily schedule.

Later that night, though, the bright red tint of the line enveloped her leg. With any feelings of relief from the initial diagnosis gone, her heart raced as she began to look down her leg to her toes, which were swollen and a sickly purple. The line on her leg was throbbing again.

“It was really tender to the touch,” Dolan said. “I couldn’t even touch it and could feel the bumpiness.”

Her roommate, sophomore Samantha Kaufman, still has the scene fresh in her mind.

“We were discussing how much her leg was hurt,” she said. “There clearly was a difference between her two legs. I just decided that we should go to the hospital just in case.”

Her new diagnosis: a blood clot. Though she just learned the illness does indeed run in her family, she was told the injury was a fluke and was still cleared to play. Her anticipation and excitement for the upcoming season were the only feelings that could outweigh her fear and the pain in her leg.

As Ithaca’s starting second baseman, she was looking forward to performing well on the spring trip. She started every game in Florida, hitting .324 in the 10 games.

While looking good on the field, her health continued to give her problems. During the course of the week, Dolan fought through two more blood clots in her leg, both with similar symptoms as the first.

“I was playing through a lot of pain,” she said. “There was no choice about whether I was playing or not though, because I didn’t know how much longer I would be out there.”

The two new instances effectively ended her season when the team’s plane landed in New York state. When Dolan was first told it was definite, her heart dropped.

“I was crushed,” she said. “It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t play, it was that I had put so much work into the preseason, and our team had finally started to really develop together.”

Shortly after getting the news, Dolan brought the team into the pitching circle at practice to tell them she would no longer be out there. As her teammates huddled around her and heard her telling them she couldn’t play, shock, followed by tears, defined the impromptu team meeting.

“It was awful,” sophomore Allison Greaney said. “We knew she was going to be out for like a week or two, but not the entire season. We were all completely speechless. No one knew what to say.”

After first hearing the news, her coaches and teammates thought about what they were losing, especially after getting into a rhythm in the South.

“We had to kind of refocus,” Head Coach Deb Pallozzi said. “She is our pulse; she’s a competitor. That was a tough loss for us. I was hoping that it wouldn’t happen.”

It did happen though, and her coaches and teammates had nothing else to do but accept that she would not be on the field. However, they would not let her presence leave the team. The prospect of still participating gave Dolan something positive to take out of a bad circumstance.

“Immediately they were all saying even if you’re not playing for us, you are still a part of this team, and we still want you to be there and coach,” she said.

While it was still too late to get a medical red shirt, she took her teammates’ advice to heart and is now acting as a student coach. She still attends every practice and game. She said fielding questions during practice about mechanics and technique makes her feel worthwhile.

“Especially when an upperclassman asks me for help, it says that I am important to this team,” she said. “They come and approach me instead of another coach, which is nice.”

During games, she helps out by filming. While behind the camera, she still gets an itch to be out on the field.

“It is easier to watch when we are winning,” she said. “When we are losing, that’s when I ask myself what impact I would have had on the game, whether that is getting a clutch hit or making a big play in the field.”

By seeing her there unable to play, the team is playing with some extra motivation.

“Whenever we are lacking in energy during a game or practice, we remind ourselves that Dolan would kill to be out there on the field,” Greaney said.

Dolan said she needs to hold her teammates accountable because of that fact.

“The second that you can’t play, and you see somebody out there who is not giving it their all when they are playing, it’s a big slap in the face,” she said. “I told my team that I would hold each and every one of them responsible for enjoying themselves because I can’t. I think they all are following through.”

Though there is still much up in the air regarding her health, Dolan has the chance to make it back on the field for her junior and senior years.

She is taking the motivation of not being on the field now to her rehabilitation and future mind-set. The program is limited because she will be on blood thinners for the next six months until doctors determine the what is causing the clots. She said the constant running she endures as part of her rehab is no match for the feel of the softball field.

“It’s a really boring exercise program,” she said. “At least I’ll be in excellent cardio shape, and that is where everything comes from.”

Other than some medication and visits to the doctor, her usual fast-paced daily life has not changed. It is something her roommate is surprised by.

“You are usually told that blood clots make you sleep and not want to do much,” Kaufman said. “It is amazing how she gets up early in the morning every day and never stops going.”

With all the motivation in the world on her side, Dolan is even looking to the incoming freshmen for more inspiration.

“Hopefully we’ll have an amazing freshman class, and it won’t be easy for me to come back, and I’ll have to compete for my spot again,” she said.

The initial pain in her leg began while Dolan was in that same process of earning her spot. It put everything into perspective for her and the team, but at this point, it will provide for more of a motivation than a hindrance in Dolan’s career.

Dolan said she expects to come back and play at 100 percent.

If she can live up to her expectations and come back with a purpose, the Bombers will once again have their beating “pulse.”