Slowed but not deterred

Allison Cheatwood powered through illness to earn her degrees

By California State University, Bakersfield

July 14^th, 2020

Editor’s note: This is the latest in a series of stories about the CSUB Alumni Association’s 2020-2021 alumni scholarship recipients, awarded to CSUB grads pursuing their graduate degree on campus.

It started with terrible stomach cramps that just wouldn’t go away, worsening when she ate. So she’d stop eating, start again, and a painful cycle would continue.

Not until worrisome bleeding started did Allison Cheatwood, then 22, call the doctor. The diagnosis: Crohn’s disease, which causes severe inflammation of the digestive tract.

Chemotherapy and more than 20 surgeries followed, including removal of her colon and six feet of her intestine.

“My tagline with my doctors used to be, ‘I almost wish it were cancer because at least cancer kills you,’” Cheatwood said.

And so Cheatwood’s college journey has taken longer than most, but not been deterred. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2019, is working on her credential, and just finished her first year teaching special education at Standard Middle School in Oildale where she grew up.

“I have never met a greater advocate for students with disabilities,” Anthony Goss, a part-time CSUB lecturer and a program specialist with the Kern County Superintendent of Schools office, once wrote about Cheatwood.

“There are those individuals who quietly achieve success through meek and quiet manners. Allison does not fall into such a category. She has a fire and passion for ensuring that all students receive the educational and emotional support they deserve.”

No fun stuff

Cheatwood is a first-generation college graduate who grew up in a blue-collar family where higher education wasn’t a tradition, but hard work certainly was. Her father worked in the oil fields; her mother was an administrator in the Kern County Assessor-Recorder’s office.

“The work ethic of my parents was very strong,” she said. “Unless you’re dead, you show up.”

Cheatwood attended Bakersfield College for a year after graduating from North High in 1997, but she was young and eager to make money and so dropped out to work full-time in the title and escrow industry.

Then her Crohn’s disease struck, and it “hijacked” her 20s, Cheatwood said. Every time she had surgery, a round of pain medicine and steroids followed that, despite the family motto, kept her from working.

“I didn’t get to do any of the fun stuff a 20-year-old gets to do,” Cheatwood said.

Cheatwood in the hospital with her fiancé, Rex Gonzales, in 2016.

At her sickest, the 5-foot, 8-inch Cheatwood was down to 111 pounds and at times only eating croutons and Ranch dressing, said her mom, Karen Cheatwood. Two or three times Karen thought she’d lose the oldest of her two girls.

But Allison was tough, never wanting to be treated differently and doing things to stay cheerful and upbeat, like putting stickers and glitter on her colostomy bag.

“She never looked at it as a handicap. She looked at it as a challenge,” Karen Cheatwood said. “(Her attitude was) ‘I just have to work harder. I have to do more. I can’t wear a two-piece bathing suit, but I can wear really cute one pieces.’”

Giving college a shot

In 2012, Cheatwood was down to just one or two surgeries a year and went to work for Aera Energy as an administrative associate. She sometimes worked at her desk while connected to an IV drip line that administered her meds.

Aera paid for employees to go to college, and so in 2013 Cheatwood enrolled at Bakersfield College. She tiptoed into classes at first, then dived in.

“I thought, ‘Let’s give it a shot,’” she said. “One night a week turned into two nights a week turned into three nights a week. I got the college bug and I was hooked.”

Cheatwood earned her associate’s degree in psychology from BC in 2017 and then her bachelor’s degree in the same subject from CSUB. She got experience lecturing as a CSUB teacher’s assistant.

None of it was easy.

In 2016, a downturn in the oil industry forced Aera to lay Cheatwood off, something she called “devastating.” And her illness flared up every so often. (Her last surgery was in 2018.) But Cheatwood persevered.

Figuring out the formula

A faculty member turned Cheatwood onto the idea of teaching, and a friend alerted her to a special ed teaching opportunity at Standard.

This past year, Cheatwood taught seventh- and eighth-grade special ed. There were about 15 students, so she got to do it one-on-one. She loved it.

“Kids are easy when you meet them where they are and they know you care and they know you’re there for them,” she said. “That’s it. That’s the formula.”

Cheatwood’s headshot from Standard’s School yearbook.

When COVID-19 required a transition to distance learning, Cheatwood worked “relentlessly” to stay connected to her students, many of whom lacked either the resources or motivation to respond, Goss said in an interview.

“She was beside herself that she wasn’t able to reach all of her students,” Goss said. “She pestered them all the time. Even if they didn’t respond, and she didn’t know whether they got the message, she was going to keep knocking on their doors or calling them or emailing.”

Cheatwood’s illness still flares up from time to time. Her mom worries that the bright light inside her burns a little too bright sometimes.

She’s also just in awe of her.

“She’s encouraged me because she’s shown what strength and determination can do,” Karen Cheatwood said. “I’ve been successful in what I did, but I see what she’s done with a disability and I don’t have anything on her.”