Softball, Field Hockey
Favorite athlete: Jason Kelce
Favorite team: Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: Playing with my sister when I was at shortstop and she was at second
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: The funniest was when Coach Schram had us practice lefthanded while singing Elton John before our playoff game
Music on play list: Metallica, Lil Baby, Drake
Future plans: Going to college for softball
Words to live by: “YOLO” (You only live once)
One goal before turning 30: Have a good job
One thing people don’t know about me: I like to be outside and go fishing.
My Mary Jane Souder
Megan Klein was born to play softball.
And the Bensalem senior has literally been involved in the sport for as long as she can remember, initially tagging along to her sister Jessica’s game (Jess is now playing at Caldwell University) and then playing herself.
Blessed with speed, the diminutive Klein creates havoc on the base paths and is the consummate leadoff batter, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
“She’s fast as heck, but she’s also a triple threat,” Bensalem coach Erin Smith said. “She can drop down a bunt, she can slap, she can swing for power. She does all three, so her ability to use her speed and read the defense makes her phenomenal.”
Originally a catcher before moving to shortstop when she entered high school, Klein also has a cannon for an arm.
It’s hardly a surprise that Klein – a member of Nightmare 18U Gold - was on the wish list of numerous colleges before ultimately signing a letter of intent to play softball at the Division 1 level for Siena College, which competes in the MAAC (Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference).
The script was going exactly as planned until, that is, Klein was diagnosed with pediatric multiple sclerosis (MS) in the beginning of March.
On Saturday, Klein’s Bensalem softball team held its annual ‘Awareness’ game, this year supporting multiple sclerosis and one of its own.
“I was thinking about that – I never thought that I’d have a game dedicated to something about me,” Klein said. “It’s kind of crazy.”
Smith admits she wasn’t sure how Klein would respond to holding the game in support of her.
“The moment we asked, she said, ‘You know what, let’s do it,’” the Owls’ coach said. “Even at the game, we talked beforehand, and she was like, ‘Can I come up and say something?’
“She came up and said, ‘It’s been a crazy journey. I’m not going to lie to you – it’s been hard. Emotionally, it’s been hard, but I’m going to keep going. I have great support.’
“She’s always been a great kid, she’s always been a great player, but this whole thing – not that I didn’t respect her before, but the fact that she’s still playing softball with everything going on, not only physically but just emotionally the toll that’s got to be taking on her mind – it’s amazing.”
An unexpected journey
A second team all-state selection last spring, Klein was primed for yet another big season for the Owls when she began to experience double vision in early March.
“The first day - it felt like I was going cross-eyed,” Klein said. “At that point, I wasn’t seeing double. I asked my friends, ‘Guys, do I look cross-eyed?’ They promised me, ‘No.’
“Later that night before I go to bed, I look at the ceiling and I see two lights, and I’m like – ‘I need to go to bed.’
“The next morning I woke up, and I was seeing two of everything, and it was super scary. I was like, ‘Oh crap, I don’t know how I’m going to drive to school.’ Thankfully, my parents didn’t let me.”
Instead, Klein was taken to the emergency room of a local hospital.
“On the way to the hospital, I couldn’t see the road right,” she said. “The lines just were going into a triangle, and I couldn’t see anything right.”
Klein received no diagnosis at the hospital but was told if it got worse to return to the hospital and to have a follow-up appointment with neurology at CHOP.
“I didn’t think anything of it,” she said. “I’m like – ‘My eye will just fix on its own’ because I didn’t really think it was that deep because I’d never had anything wrong with my eyes. I didn’t have a past history of anything.
“It was super scary honestly seeing double, but I got used to it. I adapted – I turned my head a certain way so I could see normal. Even when I was seeing double, I still had perfect 20-20 vision. There was actually nothing wrong with my eyes.
“I actually had planned to go watch my sister play softball in Florida, and they were like – ‘It’s all good, you can go down.’”
Living with the belief that the double vision would clear itself up, Klein travelled to Florida on March 8, two days after her visit to the ER.
“It was pretty crazy,” she said. “I just taped my one eye closed so I could see normal, but when I did that, it gave me a headache.
“I made sunglasses so they were patched on one side, and I was thinking I was going to have to play softball with a patch on my eye so I could see straight. But my double vision just kept getting worse. I started getting headaches. We came back early from the trip and my parents took me right to CHOP.
“I’m like ‘Oh, this is kind of serious’ because they took me back right away, so I was like – hmmm. They started sticking needles in me, doing tests. They put me right in the MRI, they took me right up to a room, and I thought, ‘Okay, I guess this is serious.’ They told me I was staying the night. I’ve never stayed the night in a hospital, and that was creepy.”
Klein was visited by a team of neurologists.
“I was like, ‘Okay, this is serious,’” she said.
It turned out it was, although Klein had not received a diagnosis.
“I’m freaking out because they didn’t give me an answer until the day I left, so I was in the hospital a little over a week and had no idea literally until the day I left,” she said.
Klein had a spinal tap shortly after being admitted.
“They gave me good medicine, so I didn’t feel it at the time, but afterwards, it was so bad,” she said. “My back was hurting really bad, so I couldn’t get out of bed and walk. And when I did, it was just so painful. I was legit in a bed for seven days, and when I tried to walk, I had a super bad headache.”
Klein also received five days of steroids intravenously, which was not nearly as easy as it sounds.
“I was poked,” she said. “The steroid they gave me was so strong that it would mess up my veins really bad, so they did about 5-7 IVs on both hands. It was brutal. They did five days of steroids and two days of antibodies.
“I kept asking what it was. I would be like, ‘So what are you guys thinking?’ They couldn’t give me an answer.”
Klein’s release from the hospital was twice pushed back a day.
“I was bummed out at that point,” she said. “It was the last day, and I said, ‘Before I go, I need to know what is wrong. What are you guys getting at?’
“That’s when a neurologist came in and told me – ‘We came up with a diagnosis of MS.’”
Klein’s response?
“What is that and can I play softball?” she said.
A new normal
Klein received immediate assurance that she could indeed play softball.
“They said I should be okay, and when the rest of the labs came back, then I would have to get a treatment plan,” she said. “I just went to my doctor’s visit the other day.
“I’m going to have to get an infusion every six months for a couple years, basically until I’m done college. Then they’ll keep going from there.”
Klein wasted no time before going back on the softball diamond.
“I took two days off from school when I got home from the hospital because I still get super bad headaches,” she said. “I would have to lay down, I couldn’t focus on anything.
“I didn’t play, but I went to see the girls my third or fourth day back. I tried to throw a ball – it didn’t work out well, it didn’t go anywhere. It was crazy.
“My throw was not the same at all – my hand was so skinny, so weak, and where the IV was in my hand was swollen and huge. Other than that, I was so skinny, so I tried to gain weight back. I made my mom buy me some protein shakes.”
And what used to feel so natural, so easy suddenly wasn’t.
“At first, it was super rough,” Klein said. “I was like – ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t know how to play.’ My first game back – it’s basically like I forgot how to hit.
“It’s been rough hitting because sometimes I get numb before I’m up to bat or before games. I’m like, ‘Holy crap, I can’t feel my arm. It feels super weak.’ Then I’ve got to try and hit this ball, I’ve got to try and throw, I’ve got to do all this. It’s just really mental because I feel like I’m supposed to be the person that’s leading the team, and here I am.”
Klein has no restrictions, and Sienna College’s coaches are offering their full support.
“They’re all on board, making sure I’m a hundred percent,” she said. “They want the best for me.”
For now, Klein is working to build up her strength.
“I feel like I can still improve a lot,” she said. “Gain more muscle, get my strength back fully.
“I’ve been doing a lot more hitting just to get the motion back, try and get out of my head a little bit and know that I’m still here – it’s me.”
Klein’s expectations for herself remain high.
“It takes a lot out of me mentally because I know I can do better,” she said. “I missed the whole beginning of the season, which prepares me for the season. I missed our first game, I missed practicing with my team.
“I didn’t know my team – it’s a whole new team. I even apologized to the girls. I missed the whole beginning of the season when it’s crucial to be with your team. I’m just like – ‘Sorry, guys, I didn’t get to be here for you. I’m a senior, I’m supposed to be bringing you guys up.’ I want to make sure I play my heart out, dive for everything I can dive for, hit every ball I can and just get out of my head.”
For Smith, observing Klein has been nothing short of inspirational.
“She sat out the very first game against Council Rock South just because she was legitimately just out of the hospital two days at that point,” the Owls’ coach said. “She came to practice the day after the Council Rock South game and took it slow in the beginning, taking some breaks, but she had zero hesitation.
“I was like – ‘Do you want to sit? Do you want to be pulled?’ She said, ‘Nope, I’m playing.’ Me being paranoid because I don’t know what to expect so I’m constantly watching her. Because I’ve coached her for so long, I can see little things. I can see her start gripping her hands or shaking out her elbows, but the last time I looked she’s like at 20 hits on the season, making diving plays left and right. It’s crazy, it’s amazing.”
At her team’s 'Awareness' game, Klein was 3-for-4 at the plate and had a 2-for-3 effort two days later. That was followed by a 3-for-4 day that put Klein's name in the program's record books. She is the all-time hit leader with 126 career hits, breaking the 1990 record of Karen Sock, who had 125.
One fact is very clear - Klein refuses to use MS as an excuse.
“Absolutely not, and no one would blame her if she did, but she won’t allow it,” Smith said. “She’s quiet – she racks up the hits, she does what she needs to do.
A love of the game
Not that Klein needed a reminder how much she loved softball – she already knew, but she acknowledges she has a new awareness of her passion for the game.
“Actually, there was one point when I was seeing the eye doctor when I was still seeing double, and they were like – this might fix itself in 3-6 months,” she recalled. “My heart sank. I actually got teary-eyed – I’m going to see double 3-6 months, maybe a year.
“I said, ‘I have to play softball.’ They said, ‘You could patch your eye.’ I was freaking out because I didn’t know how I was going to play softball seeing two of everything. There was one point where they were like – you’re going to have trouble playing, and that brought everything to light. I’m so glad to be back on the field. I’m so glad to be back in school – I never thought I’d say that.”
To those who don’t know her story and even those who do, Megan Klein is still the Owls’ dangerous leadoff, the shortstop who will risk life and limb to dive for a ball.
“People who find out are like – no way,” Smith said. “No one believes it. Her strength is phenomenal.
“Something I’ve noticed as a coach is that she’s more compassionate. Not that she wasn’t compassionate before, but the way she talks to underclassmen now. I think because of everything she’s gone through and the way she talks to them – they look up to her like no other.”
Klein – who plans to major in business/finance at Siena this fall - is intent on getting the most out of her final weeks in high school.
“Every now and then I get numb in my arms, mainly my right arm gets numb,” she said. “Sometimes I just feel off – not myself. Right now, I feel good.
If she had a message to others going through difficult times, it would be simple.
“I’d say don’t give up,” Klein said. “You’re still here, you’re still you, you’re still human.
“Things are going to happen. You just have to remember who you are and who you were before this happened and how you can grow – not let it control you but grow with it and be the bigger person.”
