MARYSVILLE, Ohio — After months of uncertainty, Margaux Osting, an eleventh grader, was finally able to resume her passion for wrestling.  

What You Need To Know

  • Marysville Early College High School wrestler, Margaux Osting, had to undergo three surgeries to get rid of her pilonidal cyst

  • A pilonidal cyst is a common cyst located at the tailbone area that can be caused by hair growth or genetics that is usually fixed by draining, but Osting had a severe infection that required surgery

  • OhioHealth general surgeon, Dr. Alyssa Pastorino says, Osting was an easy patient to work with considering the amount of physical and mental pain she went through

“I honestly thought I wasn’t going to be able to wrestle again,” said Marysville Early College High School girl’s wrestler, Margaux Osting.  

Osting has been on the wrestling team for four years, following in the footsteps of her father, who wrestled all the way through college. She tells me after years of rigorous training and aggressive competition, last September she started feeling a pain she had never experienced before. 

“I noticed this pain in my like lower back tailbone area and when I would get taken down, it would hurt a lot since I would land right there. It would be like a shooting pain, like just up my spine that hurt so bad,” said Osting. 

Two months later, doctors diagnosed her with a pilonidal cyst. A pilonidal cyst is a cyst located at the tailbone area. Most people who have them get them drained by their doctor, but because Margaux also developed a severe infection, doctors believed surgery was the only option.

“I didn’t really think it was real. It was just mind-boggling to me that just a little lower back pain could result in a surgery,” said Osting. 

Not just one surgery, Osting had to undergo three different surgeries in order to get rid of her pilonidal cyst.  

“By the time Margaux came to see me, she already had a pretty severe infection in that area, and it required a few different surgeries to drain the area. And then final surgery to open it up afterwards,” said OhioHealth surgeon, Dr. Alyssa Pastorino. 

Dr. Alyssa Pastorino says, although Osting was in a lot of pain, she was a great patient to work with. 

“She was a great sport about everything. She had to miss quite a bit of school for all of her recovery and procedures. She had to stop doing what she loved most, which was to be part of the wrestling team. So she was just a joy to work with,” said Pastorino. 

Osting says the road back from the surgeries wasn’t easy.

“The recovery process was really hard. Some days I felt like, Why won’t this heal? Like I was getting mad at myself,” said Osting. 

But almost a year later, Osting is back to school and back to working out with her wrestling team. And now she wants to let other student athletes who may be going through similar situations to know that they should never give up. 

“Just keep going. Even if you are able to, you can still be a part of that sport. If you really love your sports family,” said Osting.