Kubacki remembers waking up to the smell of smoke just moments before. Her dad, Mark, had just left for work after checking the stove since it began to smoke.

But Mark and Kubacki didn’t think too much of it because it backed up frequently.

Then suddenly the roof began to sound like freezing rain was pounding against it. Immediately, she knew something was wrong and ran to tell her mom.

The breaker shut off. The lights to the upstairs went out. And the smoke alarm started to sound.

“When we called my dad, he asked if we could put it out, but we couldn’t because we didn’t even see it,” Kubacki said. “When you walked outside you could see the smoke and hear the crackling in our living room, so we knew it was not good and spreading fast.”

Kubacki, along with her 15-year-old sister, Hailey, and their mother, Colleen, started running in and out of the house, grabbing items to save. The first thing Kubacki saved was the family’s Nintendo Wii, while the rest of her family took what they could until the smoke was too much.

Lucky for Kubacki, her clothes were already packed in her car. The Sunday before, she was supposed head back to CMU and join the rest of her teammates to start the track and field season. but she came down with the flu and stayed home to get better.

There was not much they could do once the smoke became too thick, except hope the firefighters came quickly. But with the location of her house, there was not much of a chance of it being saved.

“We live out in the country so for a fire department to get to our house, they say 20-30 minutes,” Kubacki said.

At that point there was nothing they could do.

“We sat in the cars for probably 15 minutes and just watched our house burn down,” she said.

Getting on their feet

Luckily for Kubacki and her family, they had places to stay nearby. Kubacki stayed with her boyfriend’s family while the rest of her family lived with her grandma.

By the end of February the house was completely demolished and the first week of March the contractor started rebuilding. During the process a family friend gave up his house to give them a place of their own.

Within six months the family was back under their own roof again, despite not having any carpet or furniture in the living room.

In the midst of dealing with her house, Kubacki was dealing with something much more dear to her heart.

Coming off of a solid cross country season the fall before, Kubacki returned from winter break to start the indoor track season. On Jan. 17, 2009, Kubacki was prepared to run in her third meet of the season with her parents in attendance at Kent State.

But her dad, Mark, wasn’t feeling good and he had developed a lump on his neck. Doctors removed it, but told him it was something not to worry about. Two weeks later the lump came back. He was later diagnosed with Hypothyroidism, meaning the thyroid is not making enough thyroid hormone, leading to an increased chance of a heart attack or stroke.

Mark was given some medication to cure his diagnosis but as the months progressed, the medication was not working like it was supposed to and was increased.

Learning the news

In July 2009, while Kubacki was taking summer classes at Delta Community College, she received a text message from her dad telling her they needed to have a family meeting. Right away, Kubacki started jumping to conclusions that something was wrong with his health.

“I instantly knew he had cancer, so I started to look things up on the Internet,” Kubacki said.

When Mark sat everyone down in the kitchen, he delivered the news that he was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma.

“The hardest thing was telling the girls I had cancer,” Mark said.

But they found nothing linking the lump to cancer. The cancer had spread to the lymph nodes in his back and chest.

He began six weeks of chemotherapy during Labor Day weekend. Then, on Christmas Eve, he started going to the doctors four to seven times a week for a series of radiation treatments.

Mark was used to working two jobs. He owned his own construction company. Mark said it was quite a bad thing for me not being able to work.

“It was time for me to take the back seat,” he said.

But as she was leaving for cross country camp, she recalled a specific moment in which she had trouble recognizing her father.

“He couldn’t even get up to give me a hug,” Kubacki said.

For Kylee, running was one of the last things on her mind as she headed up for camp to start her junior year. As a result, she had the support from several of her teammates.

“I was there for her to talk to a lot,” said senior cross country runner Danielle Dakroub. “It wasn’t hard for her to open up to me.”

With the love she received from her teammates on the track, she also received a tremendous amount of support from her boyfriend, Dave Hanson. Their relationship was put to the test right away. The two had only been dating for three months before her dad was diagnosed with cancer.

She would stay at his house for awhile and the two of them would frequently make trips back and forth from Mount Pleasant to Big Rapids, where Hanson attends school at Ferris State University.

“I kept telling myself it couldn’t get any worse,” he said. “I just believed in faith that it was going to OK.”

Hanson gives Kubacki a lot of credit for staying mentally strong during the difficult times.

“Seeing her dad weak and losing weight along with watching the house burn down was tough,” he said.

Getting better

Life went on for Kubacki and her dad.

While she was still going to practices and running in meets, Mark continued to go through treatments.

She often checked in with her dad but after his third chemo treatment, he did not have the energy to talk.

“You could see in her face the lack of motivation to run,” Dakroub said. “But she always gave it an effort. She even pushed me a lot during track season to tell me to go faster.”

As her dad’s cancer treatments continued, he started to regain his energy. Because of financial issues, Mark had to finish building the house himself.

“It was a fresh start of getting through cancer and the house,” Mark said. “It kept my mind occupied away from the cancer.”

After a month following his last treatment, he went to the hospital for a follow up CAT scan and MRI.

On March 15, he was officially cancer free.

Despite all of her struggles, CMU cross country director Willie Randolph described Kubacki as happy and upbeat.

“She made it through with the support of the team and her close friends,” Randolph said. In an act of kindness, Randolph and his staff put together a small fundraiser to raise money to buy clothes for the family, raising about $2,000.

After reflecting on her dad’s battle and the house burning down, Kylee questioned if she wanted to run her senior year. It took all of her junior year and all of last summer to fully recover from the dramatic events. Not knowing if she was coming back, Randolph sent Kubacki text messages throughout the summer.

“He said ‘we’re going to need you this year’,” Kubacki said.

She took the messages to heart and returned in the fall.

“This was my senior year so I wanted to stick with it.”