By Nicolette Helling, FOX 21 News

SUPERIOR - Nearing the end of her freshman year at Superior High School, Meagan Barnard was ready to conquer the world.

But one year was all she would get before her ideas about a normal high school experience were turned upside down.

"When I was thinking about my high school years I was thinking about, you know, prom queen, homecoming queen," said Meagan.

Meagan woke up one morning with swelling in her right leg.

It was gone the next day, but then came back.

It kept coming back until it stayed and Meagan spent the next five months seeing doctors.

She was finally diagnosed with lymphedema in December of her sophomore year.

"When they told me, the Mayo Clinic told me, that it was not going away, that was when everything actually came clear to me that I was going to live with this for the rest of my life," said Meagan.

Her diagnoses means the lymph nodes in her right leg cannot drain fluid adequately.

Fluid goes in, but it doesn't come out.

The devastating realization that her illness was chronic and incurable brought Meagan to a new low.

"My personality definitely changed from it. Everything about me changed," said Meagan.

Meagan says she used to be critical of other students wearing sweatpants to school, but now that her leg was swollen, regular pants caused her pain.

"To stay away from the pain it was either, look nice and have pain, or just be underdressed and not have to worry about my leg so much," said Meagan.

Dressed in clothes she hated, Meagan went to school everyday feeling different.
Family members say she never wanted to talk about her disease.

"We didn't realize how sensitive she was to it," said Meagan's sister Kaitlyn Barnard. "So it was hard for everybody."

As the months passed, Meagan continued to change.

She stopped playing basketball because the running caused her leg to swell.

She stopped dancing and twirling baton because the costumes revealed her leg.

She even stopped hanging out with friends as much as she used to.

"I just kinda felt like, at 15 years old my life was over," said Meagan.

As her painful junior year faded into summer and summer into fall, Meagan began preparing for her senior year.

Most teenage girls enjoy shopping for back to school clothes, but Meagan was constantly reminded of her condition in every store.

"I've never been able to go and look for pants or look for bottoms," Meagan said. "I always buy tons of shirts but I have nothing to wear them with."

Beyond frustrated, Meagan stayed up late that night searching the internet for clothes that would fit her.

At midnight, Meagan found a website that caught her attention.

She read about a company that made clothes for people with broken bones, amputees and for people with lymphedema.

But as Meagan continued searching The Cast Clothing Company's website, her heart sank when she noticed there were no clothes for young women.

She wrote the company's president and the response she received changed her life.

Mike Harding is the president and founder of The Cast Clothing Company in Palm Springs, Florida.

When he read Meagan's late-night plea for help, he knew he had to act.

"It was all about giving her something that she can feel good about," said Harding. "It was about taking away the self-consciousness that she's went her whole high school career with and giving back the dignity that's important to all of us. We all take clothing for granted. We don't have anything wrong so we take it for granted. Well these people, they need it."

Harding asked Meagan what she liked and what she wanted to wear.

A few weeks later, she received a pair of custom-made jeans.

"They're exactly what I like to wear," said Meagan. "And you can't even notice that I'm wearing cast clothing. So, it's amazing."

Meagan was in jeans heaven.

"I wanted it to look as much like everybody else is wearing as possible. I didn't want the focus to go to my leg," said Meagan. "When they sent me my first pair of jeans it kinda like made me realize that I can overcome things."

A year later, Meagan's life is completely different thanks to that first pair of jeans.
"It made me think, well maybe I can do sports again, maybe I can do everything else that I've let go of," said Meagan. "So they kinda gave me that little bit of courage to try harder and to work around things."

Meagan started looking forward to the future, instead of being frightened by what her disease had in store for her.

Meagan decided to start playing recreational basketball.

Then, she started coaching younger dancers at the same studio where she used to dance.

But one final hurdle sat in the way of Meagan's graduating and moving on: a senior project.

With new found courage and optimism, Meagan decided she wanted to learn more about the disease that had changed her.

Working with The Cast Clothing Company, Meagan decided to create a magazine that would provide the same kind of information she had needed so badly.

"Right now in the media it's, fit in, look this way, be beautiful, and if you have an abnormality you definitely don't fit that description," said Meagan. "I think that's pretty much why I started it because I was like, I needed this, I needed this tool to help me."

But after working on the magazine for five months, Meagan realized it wasn't enough.

"Learning about all of the things that I'm going to have to face if there isn't a cure, scared me. So I was like, what if I threw a fundraiser?"

The same young woman who had been stalled and side-tracked by lymphedema was now enthusiastic about finding a cure.

At her fundraiser last month at Superior Middle School, Meagan, the girl who never wanted to talk about her condition, took the stage to tell others how far she had come.

Her benefit for lymphedema was a success.

"That night it just clicked, that people actually saw that this was going to help them," said Meagan.

The disease that had caused her so much pain is now pushing Meagan to bring healing and hope to others.

And in the process, Meagan is healing.

"It made her realize that she can make a difference and that's made her feel like she has more of a place in this world," said Meagan's sister Kaitlyn.

Meagan says the journey from freshman to senior year has taught her how to look for the positive in the most negative of situations.

"I don't have cancer. I don't have something that's going to kill me," said Meagan. "I do have something that has no cure, I don't know how I got it or if it will ever go away, but it could be a lot worse. And so I like to try and think that way, and it makes my problem seem a lot smaller."

By the age of 18, Meagan Barnard has learned that no problem is without an answer and no illness is without the possibility of healing.

Meagan's fundraiser raised more than $3,000, but she continues to receive donations from people who have heard her story.

She hopes to raise a total of five thousand dollars before writing a check to the Lymphadic Research Foundation.

If you would like to help Meagan find a cure for lymphedema, email her at Meaganbarnard@ymail.com.