Young Amputee Is Learning to Hold On to Hope

Christopher McMillian is drinking Seven-Up one afternoon in a Mexican restaurant. Rather, he is slurping, until his grandmother insists that he use a straw. Chris bends forward at the waist and, with his lips, picks up a blue plastic drinking straw from the table.

His body is restrained by the seat belt of his wheelchair. The sleeves of his Hawaiian shirt and the legs of his basketball shorts hang limp.

Four months ago, a rare blood infection called meningococcal disease forced doctors to amputate the 10-year-old’s arms and legs. The bacteria entered his bloodstream, causing widespread clots and preventing circulation to his limbs.

Everything had to be amputated, save for his left arm, which was cut just below the elbow. Now, the former basketball enthusiast and avid swimmer is adjusting to a new, very different life.

These days, he zips around in a power wheelchair using his left arm to operate the tiny controls. He continues to work with limb loss specialists to learn how to use a prosthesis to feed himself, write his name and draw.

Progress is slow. Even using the handicapped water fountain, Chris faces a struggle to drink without wetting his entire face.

Fortunately, he has a supportive network of family members, friends and kind strangers to help him along.

“That is what gives me the strength to help him on days when his spirits are low,” said Marguerite McMillian, Chris’ grandmother and primary caregiver during his illness.

McMillian took a 30-day leave from her job as a medical case manager to care for Chris. “This stage is critical in terms of his emotional development, so I want to make sure he is OK,” she said.

Chris now lives with McMillian in the San Gabriel Valley, but twice a week he stays at his mother’s West Los Angeles home and hangs out with his two younger half-brothers. Chris’ father, McMillian’s son, died of a rare lymphoma when Chris was just a year old.

Ultimately, relatives say, Chris would like to stay with his mother again. “That is definitely the goal,” said his mom, Sandra Mestas, 26. But her second-floor apartment does not have ramps and is too small for Chris to navigate in his wheelchair. Mestas, a student at Los Angeles City College, said she is not sure when she will be able to move.

Chris’ scooter and bicycle still sit abandoned in a neighbor’s yard down the street. And the school basketball team, for which Chris was a junior coach, continues to practice without him.

Charming, Mischievous Boy Always on the Go

He was a kid constantly in motion. He had a reputation as a charming and mischievous little boy with no problem taking charge. He was as likely to lead his friends on adventurous bicycle treks through the neighborhood as to volunteer to help teachers at Wilshire Crest Elementary School keep his younger siblings in line.

“That’s what is so different for him now,” said McMillian, “losing his independence.”

Already Chris has begun to redefine independence in his new world. He gets a kick out of spinning his power wheelchair in circles and riding at top speed, occasionally leaving sore toes in his wake.

He sometimes recoils when McMillian reaches out to help him, determined to do whatever task on his own.

And he is able to joke about the future, such as when he threatens to use a Los Angeles Police Department badge, a gift from officers at Wilshire Division, to make citizen’s arrests.

What Chris doesn’t like to talk about is the past. But sometimes the topic surfaces.

“Were you at home the night I was sick?” Chris quietly asked his grandmother one day at lunch. On another day, while McMillian was giving him a shower, Chris burst into tears.

“I don’t like being like this,” he said.

“I just held him in my arms and prayed with him and told him there are a lot of things in our lives that we don’t understand and we have to trust that God has a plan,” McMillian said.

For now, the plan “is that we take baby steps . . . and try not to look too far ahead,” said Dr. Yoshio Setoguchi, medical director of children’s limb loss treatment at Shriners Hospital for Children, which will provide Chris with his prostheses.

Chris is learning to use a prosthesis for his left arm. It is difficult to predict how he will respond to a complete set of artificial limbs, said Setoguchi.

“Chris is like any other youngster; they have dreams and they have goals. I think he is realistic enough so that he can accomplish things that are obtainable,” Setoguchi said.

He Got a Signed Jersey From Shaquille O’Neal

The one thing Chris dreams of is basketball, his favorite sport.

“He said to me, ‘I can’t play basketball again,’ ” said Cindy Berger, his former fifth-grade teacher. “The reality for him was hard; his voice cracked when he said it.”

Thanks to Berger’s efforts, Chris met Shaquille O’Neal, who went to the hospital to visit him. The Laker star signed and dated a jersey for Chris and weeks later purchased a 2001 red Chevrolet Venture van so the family could transport the boy in his wheelchair.

O’Neal heard about Chris after Berger initiated a family fund-raiser months ago at Wilshire Crest Elementary.

“I think it is important for him to see that he is not going to be alone,” Berger said.

Today, Chris’ list of supporters is 22 pages long. It includes Murray Krieger, Berger’s mechanic, who rallied a group of friends to pay $15,000 to install a lift gate on the new van to allow Chris to load and unload himself.

And there is 16-year-old Jonny Hay, who organized a 24-hour basketball marathon recently, raising more than $20,000. “We just felt we should do something,” Hay said. “It’s such a sad situation.”

John Flowers, a former Cal State Northridge basketball star who lost his legs in a car accident, traveled from Texas to referee at the marathon. Throughout the evening, he and Chris chatted, their wheelchairs parked together on the sidelines.

Later, as the marathon came to an end, one of Chris’ most personal wishes was granted. With 10 seconds left, his teammates lifted him from his sideline seat and raised him above their heads to the rim of a shorter-than-regulation hoop.

Holding a tiny basketball under his left arm, Chris reached up and, to the crowd’s roaring applause, scored the final basket of the game.