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Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Fayetteville's Miracle Man
Western Arkansas, AR
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By: Gary Smith
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Photo(s) By: Jennifer Flowers
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“Most of his surgeries haven’t been for the disease, they’ve been for complications that arose,” Callie Summers said. “It seemed like every time one of the doctors would say there was a one percent chance something would go wrong, Kellen wound up being that one percent.”
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Fayetteville receiver Kellen Summers defies odds by overcoming life-threatening disease that had doctors wondering if he would live to see his 18th birthday.
It’s easy for Kellen Summers to keep things in perspective.
Easy to work up the depth chart to a starting spot when you’ve spent childhood battling a life-threatening disease. Easy to absorb a tough hit over the middle when you’ve already endured 28 surgeries, most of them before you were eight.
Kellen Summers is 18-years-old, and most doctors wouldn’t bet he’d live this long. Despite the clean bill of health he’s been given for some time, there isn’t an agent that will sell him a life insurance policy.
And yet this fall, there he’ll be, a returning starter at wide receiver and preseason VYPE CLASS 7A Squad member for defending state champion Fayetteville High.
“We always tell him ‘Kellen, you’re our hero,’” Summer’s mother, Callie said. “But he’s always been a fighter. We say we’ve had 18 good years with him, but there were times when it was hard.”
It was roughly 18 years and three months ago that doctors told Jim Ed and Callie Summers that the baby she’d been carrying for six months, the second of what would eventually be their three children, had Hirschsprung's disease.
It’s a condition that strikes one in 5,000 infants and results, in affect, in portions of the large intestine failing to move waste along. That, in turn, causes blockage, infections, and, if overlooked, a slow, painful death. Usual treatment includes removing the colon and diseased portions of the intestine. And that’s where the problems began.
“Most of his surgeries haven’t been for the disease, they’ve been for complications that arose,” Callie Summers said. “It seemed like every time one of the doctors would say there was a one percent chance something would go wrong, Kellen wound up being that one percent.”
He’s been operated on more times than most kids have been to the school nurse, been air-evaced to a hospital so often he should have frequent flier miles. On his first trip, the flight crew had to stop every hour to call ahead because they didn’t think he’d survive. One of his brushes with death occurred when complications arose and he suddenly starting feeling sick and turning blue while in the process of being released from a hospital in St. Louis after surgery. He’s undergone experimental treatments and his parents now know more about the digestive system than they ever cared to.
That Kellen Summers is alive is something of a miracle. That he’s playing football is a testament to his drive.
“I didn’t want him to play sports at all,” Callie said. “But the doctor told us ‘everything is all healed up, and you’ve just got to let him be a boy.’”
It’s still not easy. An intense competitor who also plays baseball and basketball, Summers learned how important a role his missing large intestine plays in absorbing fluids when a tough workout before his sophomore year landed him in the hospital with dehydration.
Summers generally doesn’t talk about his medical history and has been so quiet about it Fayetteville coach Daryl Patton didn’t even know the extent of his illness.
“He’s one of the toughest young men you’ll meet,” Patton said. “He’s extremely self-motivated and he has certainly put the time and effort in and worked his way up.
“When we first saw him, we really didn’t expect too much. He wasn’t very big and he was about sixth on the depth chart. I think he got a little frustrated. But he just worked hard and learned several positions.”
“My parents say I always seem to be trying to prove something,” Summers, who added 20 pounds to his 5-foot-11 frame and now weighs 150, said. “And that’s the way I live.”
His intensity on the field spills over into other aspects of his life to such a degree that Callie wonders if his early illness hasn’t become a life-defining motivation for him.
“He’s so intense about everything, from football and baseball to his studies.” Callie said. “It can be hard. With Kellen, it’s often his way or the highway. But he does give it 110 percent. A year or so ago he took a Trades (shop) class, and last year he built our deck.”
“I just feel blessed,” Summers said. “I mean what could be better than playing football and being on the state championship team and getting to defend the championship your senior year?”
But then a kid who has been sick most of his life, who has almost died, probably knows. And that’s a matter of perspective.
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