As high school seniors walk across the stage this time of year to claim their diploma, many of them reflect on how much hard work it took to get them where they are.

Rebecca Meany’s doing that too, but she’s dealt with more hardship in her high school career than the average student. The Southland High School senior lost her father, fought a rare bone disease, endured through multiple surgeries and was prohibited from playing the sports she loves. Through it all, she’s been positive and determined to get back up whenever she falls.

“I think a lot of it has turned out for the best,” Rebecca said.

Meany lost her father in ninth grade. Her brother Grant found her father, who’d committed suicide, at their home. For a long time, Rebecca couldn’t step into the home.

She wasn’t out of the clear yet. During her sophomore year, her mother Cindy talked about going to Colorado on a vacation and riding horses. Rebecca didn’t think she could ride, however.

“She told me, ‘my legs don’t seem to be working right,’” Cindy said.

That prompted a visit to the Mayo Clinic, where Rebecca was diagnosed with Protrusio, a rare bone disease where the acetabulum, the hip socket connected to the femur to make the hip joint. As Rebecca describes it, her hips are growing into her pelvis.

“That whole first day, I just couldn’t stop crying,” she said when doctors told her she wouldn’t be able to play competitive sports, a passion of hers. She had to tell her basketball coach later that afternoon that she couldn’t play for the rest of the season.

Rebecca was a trend-setter. She was the youngest patient to ever be diagnosed with protrusio and is the subject of a 20-year case study to see how the disease affects people, since it’s very rare.

The doctors forbade Rebecca from playing high school sports, something she didn’t exactly listen to. She continued to play volleyball, basketball and softball her sophomore year, as well as volleyball and basketball for part of her junior year. Yet doctors were concerned over her mobility.

“The surgeon said she has to have surgery right away,” Cindy said. “They said without it, she’d most likely be bound to a wheelchair and would have a lot of complications.”

That surgery would involve breaking her pelvis, breaking her hips, and enlarging her socket (by sanding it) so her femur could move better. It’s a 10-hour procedure, which she did twice. They would also reposition her pelvis to fix her body alignment.

Rebecca went under the knife for the first time just before Christmas 2009, to fix her right side. She was nervous about her surgery, as she’d had several on her mouth when she was little after a biking accident. She remembered waking up just before her mouth surgery then, and she really didn’t want to wake up during this important procedure.

“I don’t think I could have handled that,” she said.

The surgery was a success, although she spent Christmas and New Year’s in the hospital. With tough physical therapy and another surgery on her left side in March of 2010, she regained some of the range and mobility she’d lost over the years, though not as much as doctors would have liked.

“They thought I was going to have more flexibility,” she said.

That came with a price. Specifically, 48 screws and pins in her pelvis and hips to hold everything together. Not to mention the arthritis the disease causes and the surgical scars on her sides, running from under her rib cage past her hips to the middle of her calves.

“I have some pretty nice battle scars,” Rebecca said with a smile.

She’s kept involved in sports during her struggles as well. She was the football team’s statistician her junior and senior year, as well as the volleyball team manager. She also coached the group of volleyball girls that are moving up to varsity this year as well. On top of that, she’s kept up with her grades, and could have graduated her junior year had she chosen to.

“She got up on her feet,” said Sarah Nelson, Rebecca’s friend and fellow senior.

“It’s shocking because she’s been through so much,” friend Lauren Ashton added. “If it weren’t for (her disease) she’d be heading to softball practice just like we are.”

Rebecca’s doing fine just before her graduation. She recently had surgery to take out two screws that were bothering her, and was awarded an academic all-conference title in volleyball recently. She plans on attending the University of Wisconsin-Stout and majoring in Communications.

“I love to talk,” she said with a laugh. “I love to write, and to be around people.”

She’s got a lot of work ahead of her still. Doctors say she’ll most likely have about three hip replacement surgeries in her lifetime because of her disease, and they don’t know enough about protrusio to cure her. That won’t slow her down, however. She’s been through enough to know how to keep moving.