Connections can be made in the smallest ways and in the most unlikely places. Often, those happy accidents are the most precious. That’s why, when a Sapulpa teenager and a Tennessee-born Thunder point guard crossed paths in Memphis over the weekend, it turned out to be a life-changing moment.
Isaac Walsh, 18, has lived nearly a third of his adult life under siege, battling against a softball-sized brain tumor five years ago, and dealing with the aftershocks of surgeries and treatment both in Tulsa and at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis since then. In fact, considering the location of the tumor, doctors told Walsh that he either would die on the operating table or that surgery would render him significantly disabled.
Instead, when the tumor was removed when Walsh was 13, it caused paralysis on the left side of his face, certainly better than some of the anticipated diagnoses but still a burden. In between then and now, Walsh has undergone six more brain surgeries, four cross-facial nerve surgeries, four rounds of experimental chemotherapy, four bone marrow stem cell transplants, 36 radiation treatments and 63 blood transfusions.
Despite all of that, Walsh somehow managed to fight through the odds and graduate from Sepulpa High School with honors and is geared up to start his career in information network services.
On June 14, at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, where patients from St. Jude’s go for surgeries, Walsh underwent a second attempt to do a muscle graft surgery that would repair the paralysis in his face. Three procedures that lasted a grueling 25 hours nearly killed Walsh on the operating table. A blood clot drug caused a massive anapheleptic shock that not only made the surgery unsuccessful, but sent Walsh to the ICU for 10 days, where he was in a drug-induced coma.
Four days after he awoke, and just two days before he was set to be discharged from the hospital, Walsh was surprised with a reminder from home. Cameron Payne, the Thunder point guard and a Memphis native, strolled through the halls of Le Bonheur to surprise some children in need. Little did Payne know that he was about to meet a kindred spirit.
When he sat with Walsh, Payne discovered not just a Thunder fan sitting in the hospital bed, but someone who seemingly knows everything there is to know about the team. He knew all about Payne, his time at Murray State and his role on the Thunder. They talked hoops for quite a while until an amazed Payne simply asked what keeps Walsh going. How could someone have that much strength and perseverance?
Walsh replied, “My motto is: No Pain, No Gain.” What followed can only be serendipity at work. Payne had in his possession a T-shirt with that exact motto on the front and handed it over to Isaac.
Walsh’s father Tom was worried that Isaac would be discouraged or angry after yet again he had to suffer more medical trauma. Tom recognizes a winning spirit in his son, and a person who always thinks of others before himself, but Isaac was in pain, and this was a tough moment. Payne’s visit didn’t erase the reality of what Isaac has had to endure, but according to Tom, “it really lifted his spirits, and couldn’t have come at a better time.”