Published: June 30, 2008 12:23 pm      

Side by side

Stonewall athletes stick together during unique surgeries last week

What are the odds?

... that two teens from the same high school have birth defects that require surgery.

OK, that’s rare, but not extremely far-fetched.

What are the odds?

... those same two teens are both athletes.

That definitely increases the unlikelihood, right?

What are the odds?

... those two young students are cousins.

That’s pretty remarkable.

What are the odds?

... that those two students would be undergoing their surgeries during the same week.

Crazy, huh?

And finally, what are the odds?

... that those two Stonewall Longhorn players were in the same hospital, on the same floor just five doors apart.

Astronomical.

But that’s exactly what happened this past week when senior-to-be Jake Williams and junior-to-be Brecca Robertson underwent surgery at The Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City.

Last Monday, Williams underwent a procedure to fix a leaky valve in his heart.

Then, 24 hours later, Robertson had to get her back operated on to fuse two vertebrae together.

“Both surgeries were grueling and complicated,” said Stonewall girls basketball coach Christie Jennings.

But thankfully, both surgeries went as well as could be expected.

In fact, Williams was expected to be back home this weekend. The recovery time for Robertson is much, much longer. However, under the circumstances, even she was doing as well as to be expected at last report.

More about Brecca

Robertson’s surgery to repair her back and fuse those two vertebrae back together was expected to last just short of three hours. But things were a bit more complicated than doctors expected and Robertson ended up in surgery for about six and a half hours. The procedure also involved putting in four screws and several steel bars.

“It was just a freaky thing,” said Brecca’s mother, Laura Steele. “They say its the most painful surgery you can every go through. She’s still in lot of pain.”

Robertson was Stonewall’s starting second baseman on the Lady Longhorns’ fast-pitch and slowpitch softball teams as a freshman. It was during that spring (of 2007) that Steele and Jennings began to notice that her back problems were getting more severe.

“Last spring she was in a lot of pain. She couldn’t bend like I thought she had a times. She was dropping to her knees a lot. At second base we could kind of get away with that. If she had been at another position, we probably could have noticed it quicker,” Jennings explained.

Robertson made it through her sophomore fast-pitch season but the pain was simply too much to bear this spring.

“We didn’t realize Brecca was THAT hurt. She had a lot of back problems and everything she did hurt. She didn't have as much range of motion as she should have,” Jennings said.

Steele said doctors have ordered Robertson to do nothing but walk for the next year. After that time, they will see if she is able to resume her athletic career.

“She’s not going to have much mobility, but she hasn’t had for a long time so she wont miss that,” Steele said. “Once you have back surgery, you will likely always have pain, but they say it wont be generated from where she had the surgery. She’ll miss her entire junior year and then we’ll have to wait and see after that.”

More about Jake

Williams underwent the Ross Procedure, specialized aortic valve surgery where the patient's diseased valve is replaced with his or her own pulmonary valve. That pulmonary valve was then replaced with a cadaveric valve. In Jake’s case, his new valve was a Syntergraft valve that was just approved by the FDA a few months ago and is expected to have much better results than a normal cadaveric valve, especially in young patients.

During the surgery, doctors also found that Williams’ condition was much worse than they at first thought.

“It was a lot more damaged and enlarged than they thought it was. They said it was a good thing they did it now,” said Jake’s mother, Dianna Williams.

Jake's condition was diagnosed when he was 10, but doctors wanted to wait until his heart had grown some before finally doing the procedure.

Williams has played baseball and basketball for Stonewall High School for three years, and his heart problem really didn’t slow him down all that much.

“If you didn’t know he gad a heart condition when he was out there playing, you just wouldn’t have known it,” Dianna said.

Stonewall baseball coach Chuck Barton can’t wait to see how Williams performs with his new heart.

“He was already a pretty good athlete with that condition,” he said. “I think it will make a world of difference. He was kind of mopey at times and never felt real, real good and I'm thinking that was a large part of it. It has to make him stronger.”

Jake is expected to be able to resume normal activities in about six weeks. But rehab on his surgically repaired knee will likely keep him off the diamond and the basketball court until around October.

Surgery Partners

Both Laura Steele and Dianna Willaims said they were thankful that the two Stonewall cousins were able to go through their surgeries together.

But it almost didn’t happen. Williams was scheduled to have his heart surgery in May, but had to have ACL surgery to repair his right knee (that he played with the entire spring baseball season) instead. It was then scheduled for Memorial Day, but the doctors didn’t want to do it during the holidays to they moved it again, this time to the same week as Robertson’s back surgery.

In fact, during a recent family gathering, Steele had half-jokingly asked Dianna “Wouldn’t it be neat if we could do it (the surgeries) on the same day?”

Prayers were answered.

Both families were overjoyed when they found out Jake and Brecca would be at the same hospital at the same time. Steele said her daughter and her nephew shared a tight bond well before surgery week.

“Nobody unsterstood how close Jake and Brecca were. He’s gone on every vacation we’ve ever been on,” Steele said. “They have always been so close. They’re just precious.”

“They got up here about the same time, and they were both asking for each other,” she explained. “She went in to his room for a couple of hours on Monday. It was so sad. They were just consoling each other. They were holding hands and thumbs-upping. Then, after his surgery, during his first walk he came down to see her and it was pretty emotional.”

Dianna said it was great members of both families could visit the the hospital and the two recovering teens at the same time.

“That was a blessing,” she said. “Their scars are even about the same size. He might have beat her out by an inch.”

Steele said both families have grown even closer during the past week.

“We live a mile and a half a part, and I hardly ever see my brother and sister-in-law since we’re all so busy. It’s really neat the way things have happened,” she said. “We’ve bonded and gotten real close. For it to work out like it did, it’s nothing short of a miracle. It really is. We’re so fortunate.”

Odds are good that Stonewall fans will see Jake back in athletics in just a few months. Everyone (including one of her biggest fans, sister Megan Doyle (Whittington) who is a former basketball and softball standout for the Lady Longhorns) is praying that Robertson will be able to beat the odds and play softball again during her senior year.

“They are such great kids. They have good character and morals. I hope they can get back to playing sports because they both love it so much,” Jennings said.