Stephanie Shannon thinks every day about what might have been, how her 9-year-old son Devin “could have had tumors all over his body before we knew was sick.”
The rare cancer is called Wilms’ tumor. There are about 500 reported cases a year in the United States, the majority affecting young black males such as Devin. If caught in time, the survival rate is 90 percent.
But it’s the catching-it-in-time part that keeps returning Stephanie to that Scenic City Youth Football League game in early October. What if Devin hadn’t gotten hit hard enough to bruise his kidney, which sent him to the doctor for tests? Luckier still, what if he hadn’t let his twin brother Darren borrow his rib protector that day because, well, the team the Harrison Purples were playing, in Devin’s words, “didn’t hit that hard”?
Had Devin been wearing the rib protector instead of loaning it to Darren, the hard hit from the team that supposedly didn’t hit that hard might not have jarred the kidney enough to cause the pain that led to the doctor’s visit that led to the blood tests and X-rays that led to the discovery of the Wilms’ tumor on that kidney.
“It’s a miracle,” Stephanie Shannon said this week. “The doctor even asked me, ‘I don’t know if you believe in the divine intervention of Christ.’ Obviously, it could have been much, much worse.”
Call it the Miracle on Highway 58.
That’s home turf for the Harrison Purples football team of the SCYFL. That’s also where Devin and Darren have built quite the reputations as 9-year-old athletic sensations when they’re not tearing up the books as third-graders at the Chattanooga School for Arts and Sciences.
In fact, Devin has become so sure of his future greatness in the sport that he’s begun to color his hair the same copperish shade as New York Giants wideout Odell Beckham Jr. Fortunately for the rest of us, the words flowing from young Devin’s mouth are far more printable in a family newspaper than those often voiced by Beckham.
But his athletic and academic talents aren’t the gifts from Santa Claus that everybody associated with the Shannon family are celebrating today. They’re celebrating the fact that despite having his left kidney removed in early November, Devin not only is cancer free but never had to undergo chemotherapy or radiation.
“We had a party the day we heard the news,” Stephanie said. “Went skating and to Chuck E. Cheese. It’s all about them now.”
Christmas is almost always about the kids, about those who have and those who don’t.
But while Devin’s clean bill of health and the way he handled the surgery are admirable – he told Stephanie on the way to the car following the news that all nine of his lymph nodes were cancer free, “See, Mom, I told you everything was going to be OK and that I didn’t need chemo” – there was also his twin struggling with fears no child should have to confront.
“It’s been rough on him, too,” Stephanie said. “Darren was worried he might have to grow up by himself.”
Said Darren: “I was just sad, really. I was going to school by myself, riding the bus by myself.”
But then Dr. Jennifer Keates-Baleeiro, a pediatric oncologist at T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital, broke the good news. No more hospital stays for Devin, at least for now. No more need for the CSAS third-grade classes of Susan Pleva and Wendy Ross to march from school to hospital to visit young Devin. No more worries for Darren.
“One of the nurses told me that she’d never seen one child have so many visitors,” Stephanie said.
There have been more than a few visitors to a GoFundMe site to help with the onslaught of medical bills for a single mom raising 9-year-old twins and their 19-year-old brother Darius.
“Over $7,000 so far, and it’s still growing,” said Rob Forgey, who has coached the twins in both football and baseball.
“So many people to thank,” Stephanie said. “I’ve tried to hit every church that I know was praying for us. What the (SCYFL) has done has been amazing. (CSAS) has stood behind us, too. And I’ve told the twins more than once that we need to find that boy who hit Devin and thank him.”
Indeed, the SCYFL hosted a party for the family last weekend that included giving the twins their first bicycles. One example of the twins’ athletic skills: When someone offered to give them a far less speedy bike a few years ago, Darren told his mom, “I can run faster than that bike can pedal.”
There is no way to run from all the problems the Shannons could still face. There are still medical bills to be paid. They must also carefully weigh the risks and rewards of playing a sport as physical as football with one kidney.
“I’m very concerned,” Stephanie said. “We’ll have another doctor’s appointment in March. But we’ve already found out there are NFL players who have one kidney. If he wants to play, I can’t take that away from him.”
Forgey says that if Devin’s allowed to play, the city may have its next football superstar.
“Just an outstanding kid in every way,” said the man who’s coached the twins for at least three years. “Very, very brave, a very high IQ for sports. He’s one of those kids who people will be talking about years from now, saying things like, ‘You know, I heard about that kid when he was 9 years old.'”
Stephanie expected to take all her sons to Greater Friendship Missionary Baptist Church on Park Avenue on Christmas Eve night. She expected to say a lot of prayers of thanks. She expected to have a head filled with more thoughts and questions than at any Christmas Eve service from her past.
Then she expected to wake up this morning to a very special Christmas with her young men.
Said Stephanie with a wide smile: “The biggest one ever.”
Email Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com