SURGERY GIVES AREA BOY `SECOND CHANCE AT LIFE'

SCOTT CITY - Tommy and Sonya Miller brought their son Ryan home from the hospital this weekend for the second time.

"We were so excited about leaving, we forgot to check out," Sonya Miller said, explaining how her son's stay in the hospital had given him "a second chance at life."

Ryan, 2, has cerebral palsy, and on Nov. 14, he underwent surgery to help relax the muscles in his legs.

The procedure, called Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy, has been performed on about 200 CP patients, almost all of them children.

Ryan was the third-youngest patient at Children's Hospital in St. Louis to undergo the delicate surgery.

While it's known for working miracles in children with CP spasticity or stiffness in their muscles, the surgery also has risks.

Doctors warned the Millers that although no children have become paralyzed as a result of the surgery, it carried with it that risk.

But without the surgery, the Millers, of Scott City, say their son would not have the chance to walk, sit or stand normally. And more than anything, they want their son to be able to walk, they said.

Doctors first discovered Ryan's CP when he was about a year old.

"From day one we said that some day Ryan would walk and do whatever he wanted to do in life," his father said. "This was a way to give him that chance. And for us, the benefits of the surgery outweighed the cautions."

But when the time came for the surgery, he said, there were some anxious moments.

"The first thing I said when the surgery was over is `is he paralyzed?'" Sonya Miller said. "That's all I wanted to know."

But it was too early to tell. The couple had to wait for Ryan's medication to wear off to see if he could move his legs.

"When I saw him kicking ... I don't think I've ever been so happy," his mother said.

During the 3-hour surgery, doctors made a two-inch incision in Ryan's lower back, exposing his motor and sensory nerves. From there, each nerve was tested for spasticity. Doctors cut the nerves that were spastic, in all about 70 percent of Ryan's nerve endings that control his lower body. Normally functioning nerves were left intact.

He had to lie still for three days following the surgery, and the scar from the incision will probably never totally fade. But the effect the surgery had on his motor skills is "amazing," his father said. Improvements in his condition were immediate, he said.

"His posture is already a lot better. And his speech has improved. He's said words we've never heard him say."

Dr. T.S. Park at Children's Hospital is one of a handful of surgeons in the country who perform the surgery. The Millers said they had to trust Park completely before they allowed him to operate on their son.

"The parents play a big role in the whole process," Sonya Miller said. "If they're not 100 percent sure, Dr. Park won't go through with it, even if all the other criteria have been met."

Children have to be at least two years old before the surgery can be performed, and they must receive therapy both before and after.

For the next six months, the Millers will take their son to St. Louis four times a week for occupational and physical therapy sessions.

After that, the sessions will be cut down to two or three times a week. They will also work with Ryan at home, helping him re-learn how to sit, crawl, stand and ultimately, walk.

"It's just like bringing home a new baby," his father said. "But we have to keep him from falling back into his old patterns."

"His body feels completely different to him than it did before the surgery," added his mother. "He gets frustrated sometimes because of it. There are things he used to be able to do that he can't do until he re-learns them."

But the Millers are confident their son will learn quickly.

"To us it's just amazing," Tommy Miller said. "Everyone knows the next six months are going to be hard. It's going to take a lot of patience, but Ryan's been a real trooper.

"He'll walk," his father continued. "He's got the determination to do it."