Demanded by faith
After putting her life on hold, a young woman’s Christian faith is tested as she takes on a new identity in her childhood home.
By Ella Roberts, reporter
Brought to her knees.
Rocked to the core.
Hip-checked into the boards.
Stranded on the ice.
That’s how Kelly Hinseth felt when she found out that her mother would need yet another surgery more than a year ago.
“God, where the heck are you?” she asked.
The morning of Oct. 26, 2020, Hinseth received a phone call in the bedroom of her Duluth home from an Edina doctor’s office.
That’s the day she spent crying on a friend’s couch instead of going into work at CBS 3, Duluth.
The day her family learned a fight they thought was coming to an end was just beginning.
The day her mom, Julie Hinseth, was diagnosed with grade-four glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer. A word she didn’t even know existed prior to 11:16 a.m that Monday.
Hinseth would soon come to learn about the ugliness that is watching a mother convalesce, how she re-learns basic functioning like holding a phone and feeding herself. She would also find out she had to make some tough choices — making a major career change that meant maybe giving up a dream, moving back home with her parents in the north suburbs of the Twin Cities and putting her personal life on hold.
Not long ago Hinseth called her mom in tears, unsure of how to fill out an insurance form. She chose to go to school at Bethel University, a 20-minute drive from home. Whenever Hinseth had an anxious week, she would go home to talk through it with her mom.
“This is my person. This is the person that raised me. This is the person I’d call,” Hinseth said.
“I can’t be a kid anymore. I have to do this on my own.” — Kelly Hinseth, Media Coach
Now, at 26, Hinseth dresses her mom, feeds her breakfast and makes sure she takes her medications before Hinseth is off to work.
“I can’t be a kid anymore,” Hinseth said. “I have to do this on my own.”
Prior to the summer, Julie did not require a caregiver. Her condition reached its worst in September 2021.
“She had no cognitive function. She couldn’t talk. She couldn’t do things for herself,” Hinseth said.
This symptom, Hinseth explains, is due to side effects of her mom’s treatment which have caused extra fluid buildup and permanent brain damage. Julie’s loss of ability to understand or express speech is called aphasia. Hinseth’s brother Alex says aphasia has been one of the hardest things for their mom.
“She’s always been the caregiver for everybody else in her life and so for her to have to rely on people, she doesn’t like that,” Alex said.
Hinseth’s dad, Doug, takes Julie to speech and physical therapy as a way of combating her mental and physical impairment. She has also started a new treatment that has cut all blood circulation off to the tumor to shrink it. In just a few months, Julie’s health has improved from her lowest point of not being able to read the word “green,” using a thumbs up and thumbs down as her only form of communication and being stuck in a wheelchair just six weeks prior. Now, Julie jogs on the treadmill, gets herself ready for the day and reads to her grandchildren.
However, it is still not the same.
Not being the grandmother she used to be to her three grandchildren kills her.
“It’s been one of the hardest parts for us,” Alex said. “She’d come over all the time and she babysat. She just absolutely loved that and was able to keep up with them. And now, she can’t.”
In October 2021, about a year after her mom’s diagnosis, Hinseth left behind her love for sports storytelling in Duluth, Minnesota — 400 miles from her mom — where she filled the role of sports anchor and announced play-by-play hockey, producing special shows about the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs and broadcasting five nights a week. After dominating the Duluth hockey media scene, Hinseth approaches life and reporting in a similar fashion.
“If you watch her footage reels, she’ll crack jokes about the Bachelor/Bachelorette with the same authority and wit as she brings covering the Duluth hockey media scene,” said close friend Sarah Nelson, who cried when Hinseth told her of Julie’s diagnosis. The two met at Bethel where Nelson was the news counterpart to Hinseth as a sports reporter.
“Not saying anyone ever really deserves a brain tumor, but I especially know none of the Hinseths do.”
Nelson knows she can’t take the pain away in this situation, but sits on the other end of the phone while Hinseth screams, vents, cries — whatever Hinseth needs.
After her mom’s diagnosis, Hinseth soon realized how detrimental it was being so far from her best friend in a time of hardship. While trying to balance a full-time job with being a supportive daughter to her parents, Hinseth found herself driving back home every Friday night from Duluth after a 10 p.m. broadcast, pulling into the driveway at 1:30 a.m.
“I’m expected to get on at six and 10 and be this bright, shiny person that brings you the sports news every day. I don’t know how to do this. I knew I had to leave,” Hinseth said.
“I am right where I’m supposed to be.” — Kelly Hinseth, Media Coach
Instead of spending her nights at the rink, Hinseth now spends her days in her parents’ home in Andover, where she takes on part of the role of Julie’s caretaker. Alongside her dad, two brothers and extended family, Hinseth helps take care of her mom. This, she says, is what her faith demanded of her.
“It is a privilege,” Hinseth said. “I am right where I’m supposed to be.”
With Hinseth’s presence in their once-barren household, her parents are also learning to adjust to many life changes. Prior to the diagnosis, the Hinseth children saw their parents in traditional husband and wife roles. Hinseth’s dad, Doug, a retired construction worker, now balances being a devoted husband while also grieving for the life he once lived with his wife.
“He struggled right away, because my mom was just kind of his rock in that relationship,” said Alex, the oldest of three Hinseth’s who played hockey and football at Bethel while getting a teaching degree. “He has been so devoted to her, but at times he just doesn’t really know how to help.”
Julie, sharp and witty, was the captain of the family. With her lack of cognitive function, the Hinseth family is now realizing how vital her role was in the family. Guiding conversations and asking all the questions, she was “the glue that held us together,” Alex said.
“ [Dad is] so devoted, but Kelly brings kind of a level of practicality that my dad sometimes misses. So he’s just got someone else to bounce ideas off of,” Alex said.
Despite the many personal life shifts in her life, friends and family are continually impressed by how Hinseth continues to rely on her faith and even encourages others to trust in God’s plan.
“Hearing how Kelly is grappling with this has taught me spiritually. She’s told me many times that God will have a hand in this. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Nelson said.
Recently, Kelly and her mom had attended a Wild hockey game. Going to sporting events was a big part of Hinseth’s upbringing and something they did often as a family. Although Julie has struggled with large crowds since her diagnosis, being at the rink again felt like it always did.
“It was just amazing to be out and about again. It was so special to see her just getting to root for the hometown team,” Hinseth said.
““If I was a betting woman, I’d put money on me,” — Julie Hinseth, Kelly’s mom
The two, mother and daughter, are at peace with His plan.
“What’s the worst thing that can happen?” a close friend of Kelly’s once asked.
Her response? That her mom would go to heaven. Be with Jesus.
“If I was a betting woman, I’d put money on me,” Julie said
Timeline: Bethel grad Kelly Hinseth’s career
What is Glioblastoma?
- Glioblastoma is one of a group of tumors called astrocytomas. These tumors start in astrocytes — star-shaped cells that nourish and support nerve cells (neurons) in your brain.
- A grade 4 tumor is the most aggressive and fastest-growing type. It can spread throughout your brain very quickly.
- The median survival time with glioblastoma is 15 to 16 months in people who get surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment.
- Just 5% of people diagnosed survive 5 years or longer
What are the treatment options?
- Surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible
- Radiation to kill any cancer cells that were left behind after surgery
- Chemotherapy with the drug temozolomide (Temodar)
New Treatments being tested in clinical trials
- immunotherapy — using your body’s immune system to kill cancer cells
- gene therapy — fixing defective genes to treat cancer
- stem cell therapy — using early cells called stem cells to treat cancer
- vaccine therapy — strengthening your body’s immune system to fight off cancer
- personalized medicine — also called targeted therapy
SOURCE: Healthline website
Julie’s clinical trial
- Researchers discovered that a glioblastoma brain tumor had sky-high levels of a protein called CD200. Because such high levels of this protein worked to shut down the body’s natural immune response to foreign invaders like cancer cells, Olin zeroed in on developing an intervention that targeted CD200.
- Treatment activates cells in a way that stimulates the body’s antitumor response
- Inhibits the tumor from putting the brakes on the immune system
- Patients receive a series of injections designed to rev up the immune system and attract cancer- fighting cells to the tumor site
- Each patient receives both the CD200 treatment and a brain tumor immunotherapy developed at the U a decade ago.
