A patient's virtue
Seddon doesn't let CF slow him down
 |
| Bill Barrett photo Daniel Seddon gives his fans the thumbs up during the SLABA All-Star Game at T.R. Hughes Ballpark earlier this month. Seddon, 15, who lives in St. Peters, was released from Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center hours before the game after treatment for cystic fibrosis. |
|
Since his helmet absorbed the brunt of the blow, Seddon was unhurt, but he was lifted for a pinch runner just to be safe.
As he walked back to the dugout, Seddon feigned wooziness. He spun and staggered like someone who'd just participated in the dizzy-bat race that was once part of the between-inning festivities at River City Rascals games.A friend who was watching from the stands got a kick out of it.
"Back to the hospital, Daniel," Derek MacLachlan kidded.
Seddon tipped his helmet to the crowd, then returned to the bench. Like a sponge, he sat and soaked in water, Gatorade and life.
He wasn't supposed to play that day. Seddon, 15, of St. Peters, was selected as the starting shortstop for Monday's St. Louis Amateur Baseball Association 16-and-under All-Star Game in O'Fallon. But the game fell just after a week-long stay at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center, where Seddon is a patient of the Cystic Fibrosis Center under the care of doctors Anthony Rejent and Gary Albers.
Cystic fibrosis is an inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system of approximately 30,000 children and adults in the United States.
When Seddon didn't eat for four days after his birth, doctors discovered that he had a tear in his intestines. They performed surgery and told his parents Scott and Laura that he likely had CF.
Now 15 years old, Seddon takes eight or more pills at every meal to aid with digestion. He requires two breathing treatments every day where he wears an air-filled vest that puts pressure on his chest and shakes him in order to dislodge the mucus that fills his lungs. He is susceptible to respiratory infection, so he's on a steady diet of antibiotics.
According to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the predicted median age of survival for a CF patient was 37 years in 2006.
Seddon checked into Cardinal Glennon this July 28. His lung capacity had fallen to about 75 percent, and the plan was to do more intensive treatments in order to get that number as close as possible to 100. After five days in the hospital, he'd head home with a PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) line in his arm to administer more medicine for another week.
The PICC line would have kept Seddon from playing baseball, but when Seddon's doctors got wind of his pending all-star game, they made a deal.
"At first they were just going to keep me in until Friday, Monday through Friday. And then we told him about the all-star game, and then they came back and he told us that he just couldn't stop thinking about it and wanted me to play," Seddon said. "And he said that I'd have to stay in until Monday, Monday until Monday, a full week with the IV or the PICC line and they'll just keep pumping medicine in me and the vest and doing those treatments and then they were going to take it out Monday and I could come out here and play."
Seddon left the hospital about 1 p.m. Monday, went home for a quick nap, then started the game and singled in his first at-bat. When he was hit by the pitch in his second plate appearance, it led to the North side's first run in a 9-6 victory.
"I was just glad to be out, to be able to play," he said.
Seddon led the Americans, the SLABA Junior North champions, a team his dad coached, with a .453 batting average this summer.
As a freshman at Fort Zumwalt South, he was the starting shortstop on the JV baseball squad and also played freshman basketball. As he enters his sophomore year, he hopes to play JV basketball and make a push for a vacated infield spot on the varsity baseball team. His older brother Ryne, who will be a senior, pitched a few innings for the varsity this past spring.
Athletically, he tries not to let his illness affect him. His respiratory problems limit him to shorter stints on the basketball court, and he has to spend plenty of time hydrating. His CF also causes him to lose salt more quickly than an average person. His skin is coated with it.
"Kids will get tired and get cramps or whatever, but his is much sharper," Scott Seddon said.
"When I get hot, I go down real quick," Daniel said. "I'll be healthy, I'll be fine, and then I get heated and I'll just go down."
Though he has to make some adjustments to play sports, the Seddons consider Daniel fortunate. His recent stint in the hospital was his first stay there since a sinus surgery prior to middle school.
"When they said your son may have CF, I didn't know anything about it. And so the first thing that runs through your mind is my son's got a disease, he's going to be deformed, he'll never get to do anything like a normal kid," Scott said. "But he's blessed. We know several kids through Cardinal Glennon and through the CF Foundation that they can't participate, they don't go to school because they're too susceptible to viruses. Or we know kids that spend a week out of every month in the hospital. We just talked to a nurse or a doctor today that said there's a kid down there that's been down there for the last three years that hasn't gone two-three weeks at home in a row. And so he is extremely blessed that where he's affected is his digestive system, not so much his lungs and his lung capacity, and they've done a very good job of taking care of him."
Since he thought Daniel wouldn't be able to play Monday, teammate Justin Hellmann had red wristbands with Daniels' initials and No. 14 made for all of the Americans who made the squad. Hellmann only recently found out about Seddon's fight with CF. Daniel doesn't go out of his way to tell anyone.
"I don't like to tell people, I just like to play," Daniel said. "And when they see me play, then they can ask me and I tell them. But I like people seeing how I play more than seeing the disease and then me."
Americans players MacLachlan and Branden Sugar didn't make the all-star team, but they watched Monday's game from the first-base side, supporting their teammates. They said Seddon is just a regular guy and a good teammate.
"He's always having a good time, he's got a smile on his face, he enjoys the game," Sugar said. "Always cracking jokes."
It's been a good summer of baseball for Seddon. In addition to the success of the Americans (who finished 25-6 overall), he was able to throw out the first pitch at a St. Louis Cardinals game June 13 thanks to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
"That was fun," he said. "Did they tell you about me throwing it in the dirt too?"
The next day he played in an Americans game at Lindenwood University and hit the ball out of the park for the first time in his life.
"I had no idea it was out," Seddon said of the homer. "I sprinted to second, because I thought it was a double, at least over the guy's head. I got to second, I hear people cheering and I look at the left fielder and he's coming back without the ball and I was like, 'He must be playing a trick on me, there's no way.' I rounded third and I slapped my dad's hand and I was like, 'Wow, I've never done this before.'"
And he touched home plate, capping a moment that he might not ever repeat. It's one of the purer principles in sports, to play every play like it might be your last, and it's something the Seddons take to heart.
"That may be his last game, he may have just played his last game," Scott said as Daniel's fellow all-stars mingled and dispersed though the concourses at T.R. Hughes. "If he was to go to school in two weeks and catch a virus he might not ever play again ... You never know what could happen. It could be a car wreck. For him, it's a little different, but it could be that way for anybody."
To comment, visit stcharlesjournal.stltoday.com.
