Minium: ODU Women's Golfer Carley Rudolf survived four surgeries and a deadly cancer diagnosis with faith and courage

By Harry Minium

Carley Rudolf had been in pain for nearly a year and doctors were stumped about what was wrong. One doctor told her she had a yeast infection. Another said you might have endometrioses. Another treated her for a urinary tract infection.

She had an ultrasound, and then a CT scan, yet doctors would not ascertain what was wrong. At times, she would double over in agony. She was swallowing Advil like candy.

“The pain was excruciating,” she said. “When it hit me, I couldn’t walk.”

Or play golf, a sport that she dearly loved.

Finally, after she checked herself into an emergency room, a doctor ordered an MRI and they found what they were sure was the source of her problem – a cyst on one of her ovaries. A simple surgery would end her misery.

Just before receiving anesthesia, her parents smiled and wished her luck.

“I was so happy because I knew when I woke up, my pain would be over,” Carley said.

But when she woke up, her whole family was crying. Her mother could not be consoled. Even her father was in tears.

Her nightmare, the one she thought was over, was just beginning.

Surgeons told her she had cancer. Later, it was identified as stage three ovarian cancer. She was told by doctors at a surgical center in another state that her cancer might be incurable and that she had a 50 percent chance of living five more years.

Carley would endure another six months of treatment, including two more surgeries. There would be fear, pain, tears and tons of prayers. But she would persevere through it all and eventually be declared cancer free.

And she would go on to live out her dream of playing college golf.

The two-time state champion at Virginia Beach’s First Colonial High School walked onto the Old Dominion University golf team last season without a scholarship and finished second on the team with a 75.03 stroke average.

She did so in spite of the enduring debilitating effects from cancer medications last fall and early spring.

She is on scholarship this season and will be among the six ODU golfers to play this weekend in the annual Evie Odom Invitational at the Princess Anne Country Club. It is ODU’s only home tournament and is being played only minutes away from where Carley grew up.

Prior to this season, Carley was honored for her courage and positive attitude during her ordeal with a national award. Carley and Cal-Berkeley Head Coach Nancy McDaniel were named co-recipients of the 2024 Women’s Golf Coaches Association Division I Kim Moore Spirit Award earlier this year.

Named for former University of Indianapolis golfer Kim Moore, the award recognizes a coach and student-athlete “who exemplifies a great spirit toward the game of golf, a positive attitude on and off the golf course, a role model for her team and mental toughness in facing challenges.”

Clearly, that describes Carley says her mother, Christy Rudolf.

“When she was told she had a 50 percent chance of being alive in five years, I was frantic,” Christy said. “Here I am crying my eyes out and she was trying to make me feel better.

“She reads the bible and prays every day. She finds strength in the Lord.

“Even when things looked their worst, she was positive,” Christy added. “All along she said, ‘Mom, I’m going to be OK.’

“She’s the bravest woman I’ve ever known.”

CARLEY WAS A BORN ATHLETE

Carley was an athletic child almost out of the womb, says her mother. Carley blushes when you tell her that her family says she was a bit of a tomboy.

She played soccer and at one time dreamed of becoming a pro surfer and could be fearless. She once broke her arm skateboarding.

Then one afternoon, when she was 11, her grandparents took her to hit some golf balls on a driving range. “I just hit a couple, but I decided right then, this is what I want to do,” she said. “I was hooked on golf.”

She was always a good student and so she was allowed to leave school early while in middle school to go play golf. She was on the course nearly every day and still is.

“A lot of kids like to play golf because they’re good, but that doesn’t mean they love the game,” said ODU Head Women’s Golf Coach Mallory Kane. “Carley just loves the game. She’s out there on her days off.”

That dedication led her to early success – she won a state championship as a freshman and again as a junior at First Colonial. She had her heart set on going to Virginia Tech, and asked coaches there if she could walk-on without a scholarship.

They said no, but Carley enrolled at Tech anyway and stayed for a year.

She continued to play in tournaments and continued to hone her game. Unsure of her future, she returned to Virginia Beach and enrolled in ODU’s online program.

The pain began shortly thereafter, in January of 2021.

Carley spent nearly an hour detailing her medical history in an interview and it’s impossible to summarize thoroughly. But here’s the gist – for nearly a year, doctors failed to diagnose her cancer.  

That means that for much of a year, she suffered pain needlessly and her cancer was allowed additional time to grow. By the time she got to the Memorial Sloan Ketterling Cancer Center in New York City in mid 2022, the cancer had spread to her liver.

“When we sent her scans to Sloan Ketterling, ones taken earlier in Virginia Beach, they saw the cancer on those scans,” Christy said. “All of the people who treated her here, they all missed it.

“I don’t know how that happened. I tried for five months to get answers and haven’t. Was I angry? Yes.

“But I’m far more relieved and happy that my daughter is now healthy.”

Carley had her second surgery in Texas. That is where she learned she had cancer throughout her reproductive system.

“They removed my left ovary and fallopian tube and lots of pieces on the fatty layer of my stomach,” Carley said.

But when surgeons realized the extent of her cancer, they closed her back up without removing most of it. They sent her back to Hampton Roads with orders to start chemo.

“They gave up on her,” Christy said. “They left the cancer inside of her and told her to go home and get chemo.”

That’s when Carley’s uncle, Brian Warren, got involved. He’s a Norfolk-based anesthesiologist for Sentara Healthcare and he got on the phone to Sloan Ketterling, which is one of the nation’s finest cancer treatment centers.

He reached out to Dr. Emeline M. Aviki, a gynecological oncologist, who asked Carley’s doctors to send her all of her scans.

After seeing the scans, Aviki told Warren to get his niece up to New York as soon as possible.

“We need to get her up here right away and do surgery,” she said.

Aviki said she would remove all of her cancer and then treat her with chemo.

“She was so confident, she was so good, so kind,” Carley said.

Aviki asked Carley if she wanted to have children someday – a tough question for a 20-year-old to be asked – and she said yes. Then go home and get some of your eggs harvested because after this surgery, you will not be able to have children, she was told.

It sounded simple but wasn’t. For a couple of weeks her mother had to give her a shot in the stomach each day and she would have bloodwork every day as well. “It was an emotional roller coaster,” Carley said. “I didn’t want to be doing this at 20 years old, thinking about kids, when I’m so young.

“I had so much else going on that I didn’t want to worry about it.”

On the day her eggs were harvested, nurses had trouble getting an IV started. Five times they searched for veins and could not find one. Finally, on the sixth try, they were successful.

“I don’t know why, but for whatever reason, that was when it hit me, that what I was going through was awful.”

But they got 15 eggs and on May 9, she went to New York for her fourth and final surgery.

The surgery took seven hours and required other specialists, including a liver surgeon, to be there because cancer was over so much of her body.

Throughout her ordeal, Carley never lost sight of her dream of playing college and then perhaps professional golf, even when preparing for surgery.

“They could have opened me right up,” Carley said. “But I had talked with Dr. Vivik and she realized that doing the surgery the traditional way would hinder my golf career. So, they did the surgery robotically.

“That’s why the surgery took so long.

“She did everything she could possibly do to help me.”

Vivik told her the surgery had been successful. Then, a week later, came more good news. The pathology came back and indicated that the cancer she had was not nearly as aggressive as had been diagnosed in Texas.

“I didn’t need chemotherapy,” Carley said.

Three months after the surgery, she was back on the golf course, and contemplating a college golf career.

A YEAR AFTER HER SURGERY, CARLEY JOINED THE ODU GOLF TEAM

Carley continued to recover from surgery and played in tournaments for the next year. Finally, in May of 2023, she reached out to Kane and asked to meet with her.

Carley asked if she could walk-on to the team without a scholarship.

“I called her and told her I’ll do anything to be on your team,” Carley said. “I’ll work my butt off for you.”

So Kane agreed to meet with her.

“Of course, I knew Carley through the golf community in Virginia Beach,” Kane said. “She’s one of the best players ever to come out of this area.

“I knew word of mouth what she’d gone through.

“When we met, she just blew me away with her poise and maturity and more than anything else, her love of the game. She’s a golf nerd. She’s a golfaholic.”

Carley was instantly accepted her teammates and quickly became a role model on a team composed mostly of players from other countries.

“She’s a wonderful teammate,” Kane said. “She gets along with everyone. She’s humble and doesn’t like to be the center of attention.

“And she’s such a dedicated worker. Other players see her commitment and realize how much she has overcome, and they are inspired.

“She’s been through hell and back.”

Including her first season. She was on a medication to help treat the cancer that induced all the symptoms of menopause – including hot flashes, sweats and at times, a shortened temper.

“There were times when I saw her drenched in sweat before we began to play,” Kane said. “It was a difficult time for her but she never complained.”

Carley said she would not have made it without the support of her family. Her father, Chip, owns a construction business but during her 18-month ordeal, he took a lot of time off from work.

Her brothers, Chase and Cobe, boyfriend, Jaret Shifflett, and grandmother, Sue Warren “where for there for me so much. I had so much support.”

And so was Brian Warren, the man who may have saved her life.

“Brian had the resources, he knew who to call,” Christy said. “We’re all so grateful.”

Carley has not been shy about her cancer. She has done two TV interview urging people to be screened for cancer. She has been active in the Crush Cancer event each year at the Princess Ann Country Club, which has raised more than $2.5 million for cancer research.

Carley also began a clothing line business online. Each pair of shorts bears a teal ribbon that stands for ovarian cancer prevention.

CLICK HERE FOR RUDOLF GOLF PAGE

She’s also part of a group of cancer survivors asked to speak to medical students at ODU’s Eastern Virginia Medical School. Her message? When somebody has symptoms like she did, don’t just “push them aside.” Dig deeper.

Carley says she isn’t angry that doctors misdiagnosed her. “Ovarian cancer is such a rare thing in people my age,” she said.

“Yes, it was disappointing. But I got lucky. Had doctors taken out all of the cancer during my second surgery, I would not be able to have kids.

“I’m so grateful Dr. Vivik told me to get my eggs removed. Someone will have to be a surrogate mother but I will be able to have children.”

Her mother has volunteered to be her surrogate.

But Carley has a lot of goals to reach before she has children. The NCAA recently granted a medical redshirt for her, meaning she can also play golf next season.

After that, she plans to become a pro.

A communications major, she said she might aspire to be an analyst on the Golf Channel.

“Professional golf is a grind,” Kane said. “There’s no guaranteed money and the grind is very lonely. So much goes into it. You have to pay for rent, for travel for a caddy.

“You’d better have the desire for everything that goes along with it. It’s so much more than just golf.

“For Carley, she loves it enough that all of those things would be part of the fun for her.”

She also believes Carley should eschew announcing and become a coach when her pro career is done.

“I hope one day that she has my job,” Kane said. “She would be such a great coach. I can’t think of anyone better to lead the program at ODU other than Carley.”

Carley said her Christian faith helped her through her ordeal.

“My mom cried every single day,” she said. “I knew I had to be the strong one.

“Just like I knew I had to be strong, I also knew that everything would be OK. I don’t know how I knew it, but I did.

“I just knew it. I knew God had my back and so did my family.”

“This experience changed my perspective on life. Before, when something would go wrong, I would say, ‘Why me?’

“I knew I had to be positive. Had I gone down the wrong path, I might not be OK. My attitude helped me get better and get better more quickly.

“Before, when I hit a bad shot, I might get angry. But now I’m just happy to be playing golf, to being alive, to still being here with my family and doing what I love to do.”

Minium is ODU’s senior executive writer. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram

To learn more about Crush Cancer, CLICK HERE.