When life gets tough and knocks you down, which it will, there are two options: You can stay down, or you can get up, push through, and try again. Every once in a while, we meet an athlete who chose to put up a fight for their dream and overcame all odds to become a champion. 

This inspiring story, written by the athlete's parent, has motivated us—and it’s our mission to spread her story to you.

Tatiyahna Davis, also known as “Tati,” was diagnosed at the age of 1 year and 2 months old with a severe form of cancer called intermedullary astrocytoma from the level of her second bone in her neck down to the second bone in her upper back.

This tumor has a 95 percent mortality rate.

Of the five percent of people that do survive it, they are usually paralyzed from the neck down or suffer from severe neurological deficits.

Doctors decided that Tati had to get the tumor surgically removed; however, the surgery was a difficult one since the tumor was attached to her spinal cord. This made it hard for the surgeons to be able to tell what was the tumor and what was the spinal cord. Because of this, when they performed the surgery, they were only able to remove 60 percent of the tumor in order to not touch the spinal cord.

After the surgery, the doctor said that they were going to schedule her for chemotherapy and physical therapy in order to try and rid her body of the rest of the cancer and also to help her recover from it. She was even flown to MD Anderson in Texas where they tried to see what they could do for her treatment and they agreed that chemo was necessary.

Tatiyahna’s mother and I are both chiropractors, so as soon as she got home from the hospital we started doing rehab on her ourselves. Much to our surprise, soon after the removal of her tumor, Tati was able to sit up on her own and even started crawling; this was something we were told she would never be able to do!

As time went on she got even stronger and by some miracle, she was able to stand and then even start walking again! When she went back to the doctors office for her next MRI before she was supposed to start physical therapy, they saw that she was miraculously walking just fine on her own and they gave us the option of still doing physical therapy but after how well she was doing, we refused the therapy and decided to stick with our own physical therapy we were doing at home. 

The next three months the tumor again showed a slight decrease in size, so they again decided to wait on the chemo for another three months.  

This same pattern went on every three months up until Tati was 13 years old. It was then that God’s blessing poured out onto Tatiyahna. The tumor had disappeared, and she was cancer free!

Throughout her years of battling this cancer, Tati became obsessed with YouTube videos of tumbling and cheer. She watched videos on how to flip and cheer and despite her diagnosis or what any doctor said, she would practice at home on her bed and be determined to do the things she saw in these videos.  

We finally decided to enroll her in gymnastics classes even though it was against doctors', family and friends' wishes due to her unstable neck and back from her cancer. We knew there was no stopping her, so we did it anyways and enrolled her in gymnastics classes. 

She loved it so much that eventually, she moved on to take some cheer classes at her elementary school. 

At age 7, she joined an all star competition team and we knew she had found not only her passion but something that pushed her to keep going, to keep fighting, something to live for.

Tati has worked her way through all of the levels of all-star cheer, she has competed at every Level 1 through 5. She has never let her cancer stop her; in fact, most of her teammates, friends, and coaches don’t even know that this is something she’s dealt with her whole life.

She doesn’t talk about it much because she doesn’t like to be treated differently than anyone else. She doesn’t want to be babied or told what she can’t do; she wants to be treated like every other athlete and to be pushed to her limits.

Tati now cheers for Rockstar Cheer in Greenville, South Carolina, under amazing coaches and next to incredible teammates. Last year she got the opportunity to be on Rockstar Cheer’s international open coed Level 5 Worlds team, The Rolling Stones. It was everything she had ever dreamed of to finally reach the level she had worked so hard for and to finally get a chance to compete at The Cheerleading Worlds.

This year Tatiyahna cheers and is a flyer for Rockstar Cheer Beatles, and as her parent, I have seen a transformation in her here at Rockstar. She’s no longer just living — she is thriving! 

The family she has at Rockstar cheer and the coaching staff here have put all they have into her and have pushed her the way she desires to be pushed. She has grown here as an athlete, as a person, and as a survivor! Her next goal is to win worlds and she knows she’s right where she needs to be to do it! Nothing has beat her so far, she has proven that hard work and perseverance always wins!

If cancer can’t beat her, nothing can. 2018-2019 watch out for Tatiyahna Davis and The Beatles!

By Karl Davis