FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WTHR) - There is an Indiana swimmer in Rio this week who will be watching closely rom the stands.
After battling cancer, the teenager from Fort Wayne was granted a wish through the Make A Wish Foundation. Cora Waldron, 13, wished for a trip to the Summer Olympics in Rio.
The swimming pool has always been a haven for Cora, but she never realized it more than when her life and health took a turn.
"I love it now and I can't get enough of it," Cora said.
Cora is a competitive swimmer, a pro at freestyle and butterfly. She started earning her fins in 1st grade.
In 2014, however, Cora started coming down with fevers and rashes. She felt exhausted but didn't know why.
"Normally I'm the person that wants to go and do, but then I wasn't. And so we went through a bunch of different doctors and they told us it wasn't cancer, but then we came back and they told us that it was," Cora said.
It was Stage IV Hodgkin Lymphoma.
A sixth grader at the time, Cora immediately started four months of chemotherapy. She could not go to school, but there was one place Cora could be.
"The pool was actually a safe place for her because the chlorine killed the germs. So she could be in the pool the entire time that she was in treatment, so that was what she did," said Cora's mom, Galyn Walrond.
"They said go for it. This is the one thing you can do, why don't you do it strong," Cora said.
In fact, Cora and her doctors believe the water helped her heal.
"I went into chemo being very strong from swimming, and that really helped me get through it. And this was the one thing I could do, so when I did it I wanted to make sure that I was in the pool, all the time, as much as I possibly could," Cora said.
As treatment went on, Cora and her family learned she would be granted a wish from the Make A Wish Foundation. The first thought from her adventurous imagination was to go ziplining.
"So I was looking up top places to zipline and one of them was in Rio," Cora said.
One online search led to another and finally to her wish: to get to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil.
Cora had never been out of the country so she had to get a passport. Soon, she was getting ready for a week long trip to Rio with her mom, dad and little brother.
"To see that culture but also to see some of these swimmers that she has idolized reach their goals, it will help her to potentially reach her goals as well," said Cora's dad, Eric Walrond.
Cora's dreams in and out of the pool have touched her parents.
"She's my hero and my inspiration," Galyn Walrond said. "The chemo definitely affected her, physically and mentally. So she had to work very hard to regain the strength of an athlete and she did."
"Make A Wish has really helped to keep that fight and that drive in her. This is one of her dreams to go to the Olympics, this is her wish," Eric Walrond said.
Teammates and coaches are proud, too.
"I think with everything that's happened, she is just so happy to be back at it and just be one of the kids and a member of the team," said Justin Max, head coach of Cora's swimming team.
Cora, however, has even bigger plans.
"I'm hoping to make the trial cuts in 2020 and if I don't make the Olympics, I'll try the next one," Cora said.
While the Olympics in Rio may be her first, she believes they will not be her last.
"I want to bring back the memories, being able to see it, because one day, I hope to be there, but on the deck," Cora said.
"As a 12-year-old being diagnosed with stage IV cancer, to not only be surviving, but thriving, you couldn't wish anything better," Galyn Walrond said.
With checkups every six months and then yearly, Cora's prognosis is good, leaving her future as a swimmer open and bright.
She will get to see swimming and some gymnastics while she's in Rio. The Make A Wish Foundation also gave Cora a GoPro camera to document her trip.
Cora starts 8th grade the day after she gets home from Brazil.
She hopes to go to medical school one day and become a pediatric oncologist.