Singer, soccer player, cancer survivor hopes to inspire others

This story appeared in the July 31, 2025 edition of The Barberton Gazette & Norton News.

PHOTOS BY CARMEN CARLUCCI
Alexis Haynes, 18, found out a week after graduating from Barberton High School that she had ovarian cancer. The soccer player, singer and Kavé Coffee Bar barista who plans to pursue a career in the medical field is grateful for the outpouring of community support and she hopes to advocate for women’s health.

Alexis Haynes and her Dad, Mitchell, sing in their band, Me & My Dad Band, at M and M’s Taphouse. The duo sings a range of cover songs. Haynes graduated from Barberton High School this year. The graduate found out a week after commencement that she had ovarian cancer. (PHOTO PROVIDED)

By CHRISTINA McCUNE
BGNN managing editor

BARBERTON Alexis Haynes’ senior year of high school will certainly be a memorable one – for reasons both good and bad.

On top of schoolwork, Haynes completed her fourth year as varsity goalkeeper for the Magics girls soccer team. She had been playing soccer since she was 5 years old and played soccer year-round for school and club teams as well as coached youth soccer.
Haynes also kept busy as a barista and shift lead at Kavé Coffee Bar and ran the downtown coffee shop’s popular Thursday open mic night.

She and her Dad, Mitchell – who led worship for years at church – along with younger sister, Taylor, sang during open mic night and had gigs at other places serenading local crowds with acoustic covers as the Me & My Dad Band.

The self-proclaimed “workaholic” liked to keep busy and she earned a couple of scholarships from the Barberton Community Foundation toward her plan of attending Aultman College of Nursing. For a couple of years she has dreamed of pursuing a career in the field of diagnostic sonography.

The 18-year-old said it’s somewhat ironic that those same scans she aims to learn how to perform for her profession after high school detected a large mass in her abdomen toward the end of her senior year. She knew surgery would be required to remove the mass and while waiting to undergo further imaging she participated in Barberton High School’s commencement ceremony among the sea of purple gowns with the rest of her class. She wasn’t able to push through the discomfort and pain much longer than that. A week after graduation, she underwent emergency surgery to remove what turned out to be a cancerous tumor in one of her ovaries.

The high school graduate’s momentum came to an abrupt halt.

But her spirit never wavered.

Surgery followed by three rounds of chemotherapy was not how she envisioned the summer following her senior year of high school. But with her family, boy-friend, friends, co-workers and countless others by her side, she is recovering from surgery, has one chemo treatment left to go, and she is kicking cancer to the curb for good.

‘LISTEN TO YOUR BODY’

Through her entire senior year, Haynes knew something was off with her health. It didn’t slow her down. She and her boyfriend, Kaleb Carpenter, went to the gym almost every day. She played soccer and did all her normal activities going to school and working most days at Kavé Coffee Bar.

“My whole senior year I struggled with day-to-day nausea and pain. It was a struggle. I pushed through,” she said.

She blamed it on her menstrual cycle. Even though symptoms were more severe than usual she didn’t feel it was bad enough to seek a professional’s opinion. Over the course of the year, she lost her appetite. She began to look thinner but her stomach felt more bloated. She carried on. She attended the annual awards ceremony in April hosted by the Barberton Community Foundation and Barberton City Schools where she received two scholarships to continue her education in the medical field.

Her family had some personal issues and they lost insurance for awhile. Finally, when she knew she would be covered again, and symptoms hadn’t improved, she made an appointment with her obstetrician-gynecologist for the middle of May. An ultrasound showed a mass in her abdomen. A CT scan was ordered but that was going to take another couple of weeks to get approved through insurance. She knew she needed surgery but she was going to have to wait a bit longer. She still walked at graduation.

One week after graduation she began feeling really sick. Things escalated quickly. She couldn’t wait for the CT scan. She had to go to the emergency room and she found herself facing emergency surgery. She was told she had ovarian cancer. Doctors removed the tumor along with an ovary, her appendix and part of her abdominal wall. She was able to keep her uterus and one ovary and while she is undergoing chemotherapy they are working to protect her remaining ovary.

Haynes said they suspect she had the tumor for more than a year but it was over those last couple of weeks in May the tumor had doubled in size.

“It was like I was carrying twins,” Haynes said. “Thankfully, we’re very blessed it was confined to my ovary and didn’t spread. It was Stage 1.”

At the hospital she was told she was the second youngest girl they had seen with that type of cancer. Haynes tested to see if the cause may have been genetic and the test came back negative. She said doctors have told her that her chances of getting cancer again are minimal.

“Even after two rounds of chemo, I still have yet to grasp this is real life and I’m living it and I feel like cancer is always something you hear about and whether you see it on TV or you hear about it on social media, you see it a lot but it’s one of those things that you think ‘that would never happen to me, I would never be in that situation.’ Still now, it’s difficult to be like: ‘Wow, this is my life and I’m experiencing this.’ It’s crazy to think.”

According to the American Cancer Society, a woman’s risk of getting ovarian cancer during her lifetime is about 1 in 91. The cancer mainly develops in older women. About half of the number of women who are diagnosed with ovarian cancer are 63 years or older. Ovarian cancer diagnoses have been slowly falling over the past few decades. Fewer women are dying of ovarian cancer as well, likely due to better treatment, according to the ACS. The rate of ovarian cancer deaths has decreased by 43% since 1976. The American Cancer Society estimates in the United States for 2025 about 20,890 women will receive a new diagnosis of ovarian cancer.

“It was definitely a shock for sure,” Haynes said. “We never would have expected it because I am so young. There was so much unknown. That was the crazy part. I played my whole senior year of soccer with cancer.”

Her parents, Mitchell and Andrea, and her 15-year-old sister, Taylor, who will be a sophomore this year, have been by her side through it all.

“I’m so blessed to have a family where we all come together and we get through this together,” she said. “It’s hard not just for myself but for my parents and my younger sister as well. When she came to the hospital and visited me it was so incredibly hard. It’s hard to see someone you love in that situation. We’ve all just really come together.”

Haynes isn’t shy about her illness. She hopes by telling her story she will be able to help others in similar situations.

“Everyone copes with things differently,” she said. “I am very much a talker about it. I love to tell other people about my situation. In a way it also helps me cope with it.”

Haynes said she has gained much from the experience. She is grateful to the outpouring of support from the community. And she hopes she can apply her experience and what she has learned to her career as an ultrasound tech.

“I want to be able to advocate to women that if you have been putting off getting checked out just do it,” she said. “Listen to your body and never brush anything off. Never be ashamed to schedule a doctor’s appointment or an OB-GYN appointment. … Really prioritize your health because you only have one body.”

Haynes said she contacted the Barberton Community Foundation and they didn’t hesitate to tell her they would hold her scholarships for her so she can still apply them to the following year when she attends college.

Haynes already imagines when she’s settled in at a clinic or hospital that she’ll be able to form connections with patients.

“If I ever am working and I have a patient who had something similar to me, I’ll be able to have a better understanding of what they’re going through and kind of a connection which I think is really cool. I have wanted to go into this career for such a long time. When I get into this career, I’ll be able to have that connection with people.”

OUTPOURING OF SUPPORT

Haynes said from working at Kavé during most of her time at high school and running open mic night and performing at places she meets many people and she has been shown much kindness and support during this time. Ultimately, she would like to get back to work later this fall. She said her managers Ryan and Alicia and her co-workers have been understanding and supportive.

“I miss working so much,” she said. “Everybody who knows me knows I’m a workaholic. I love to work and it also helps that my work family is just fantastic. When you work at a place for so long – like a public service place – you have regulars. I miss Kavé. Even people I don’t know will come up to me and talk to me and have a conversation with me. Just to see the generosity that Barberton has. Barberton has really come together and supported me through this.”

Certain plans in her life have been paused — such as going to college and continuing to work and pursue other activities – but her life certainly isn’t on hold. She has much to look forward to.
Her final treatment is in August. She said she can’t wait to ring that bell at the hospital so she can celebrate being cancer free and done with chemo. She will need to take it easy as she recovers over the next few months, and her medical team will watch her especially closely over the next five years. She has firm plans to pick up where she left off down the road and go to college, coach soccer and sing out in the community again.

“I was really hoping I would still be able to go to school in the fall,” she said. “We decided as a family that my health is my main concern and I will push it back and take a semester or a year off. My health won’t get back to 100 percent for about a year or a year and a half. It will take my body a little while to recover from the chemotherapy. We want to give it time for me to still be able to get back to full health again.”

Her uncle has arranged for the family to watch their favorite ’90s rock band 311 in concert – from the stage. As she’s undergoing chemo treatment, looking forward to special activities like this helps to keep her going. She also looks forward to a vacation with her family later this year.

“We want to be able to use the fall and winter as a time to live again,” she said. “Our motto through this has been ‘one day at a time.’ We’re just pushing through it one day at a time.”
Recently, local events have raised money to help out the family and to show support to the young woman who has become even more well-known in the community than before.

She plans to be at the Open Mic Night and benefit July 31 at one of her happy places: Kavé Coffee Bar. She attended the fundraiser July 19 at Wink’s Drive-In, which had an open mic benefit for her. She said Mayor William Judge’s family is friends with her family and she was grateful that this month’s Change for Change, which always benefits a good cause, was in her honor on July 25 at the Hungarian Club.

The annual rock cancer concert in Barberton featuring Paradise and The Woovs also will benefit Haynes Aug. 9 and another area teen diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Emma Bryant.
She said her BHS soccer team is going to have a Kick for a Cause game that people can look for this season and the game will be dedicated to her.

“My family and I have said the money isn’t our main concern,” she said. “The biggest thing we get out of this is the love and support from the community and the same thing with everything we’ve seen on Facebook – all the comments – people have been so so kind and loving and sharing their support. That’s the biggest thing we get is love and support from the community.”