Mary Louise Pawlowski is home and sporting a brand new look.

After a 93-day hospital stint, where she first battled through chemotherapy and then through a nasty infection and skin grafts, the eldest daughter of Auburn baseball coach John Pawlowski has taken her recovery home.

And her hair, which was blonde before she lost it during the chemo, is growing back jet black.

“Her hair is longer than mine right now,” Pawlowski said. “So she’s pretty proud of that.”

The cancer that afflicted Mary Louise is known as primitive neuroectodermal tumors (PNET). It is a rare form of bone cancer seen in only 2 percent of children afflicted with cancer.

In December 2007, at the age of 14, she underwent a six-hour surgery to remove a tumor and two ribs. Life didn’t get any easier after that, as she overcame a myriad of medical hurdles.

Throughout the entire ordeal, she maintained a blog on her self-made Web site, mlpfoundation.org. Even at times, though, the pain was too much and blog updates were provided by her mother, Sarah.

But that’s all in the past now.

Pawlowski said Mary Louise is walking around with a walker at times, but mostly uses a wheelchair to get around the house.

The ultimate goal is for Mary Louise to travel here to see her father coach. But if that’s too much, Pawlowski hopes Mary Louise can make the one-hour trek from her home in North Augusta, S.C. to Columbia, S.C. for Auburn’s three-game series with South Carolina next weekend.

“I’m hoping,” Pawlowski said. “That would be awesome.”

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