NY Mets pitcher Scott Atchison’s daughter, Callie, battles rare genetic disorder, an inspiration to Atchison (original) (raw)

The first time that Scott Atchison remembers his daughter proving him wrong was when she was just a couple months old. Lying on her stomach, his tiny daughter twisted her legs and raised herself up, without her arms, into a sitting position just with the power of her core muscles.

“It was not how any other person would have done it,” the Mets reliever said with a proud smile. “She just figured it out she could do it and that was that.”

It was the first of many moments over the past five years when the tiny little blond girl named Callie would teach her parents, Scott and Sarah, that things are not always as difficult as they first seem. It was also Callie, now 5, who made her dad take a second chance on pitching in the majors after he settled in with some success in Japan.

One of the veteran arms that Mets general manager Sandy Alderson picked up this offseason to try to strengthen a bullpen that was ranked 29th out of 30 teams in 2012, Atchison has a 1.69 ERA in five appearances so far. He pitched two scoreless innings in the Mets’ 16-5 win over Minnesota Friday night.

He would not be here in the majors trying to help the Mets at all, however, if it wasn’t for his daughter.

Callie was born with thrombocytopenia-absent radius syndrome (TAR). It is a rare genetic disorder that is characterized by low levels of platelets in the blood, and an absence of the radius bones, the long, thin bones of the forearms that support her wrists and give strength to her thumbs. Callie also has a slight bowing of her legs because of it.

Just hours old, Callie was already battling through life. She was born with an extremely low blood-platelet count, which contributes to the clotting of blood. She was immediately transferred to the Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, in the Atchisons’ native Texas and began a series of five transfusions. She would need 10 transfusions in the first two months before her blood platelet level would stabilize.

Scott remembers sitting and looking at his tiny daughter with an IV tube connected to her head, worrying what kind of life she might have.

“You can’t help but think that there will be all these things she won’t be able to do. And because her arms are shorter without the radius bone, you worry that maybe kids will tease her,” Scott Atchison said. “It is always hard to imagine what babies will be when they grow, but we never imagined all the things she would show us she could do.”

The blood-platelet count stabilized, but Callie had little use of her right hand. She required surgery in January 2010 and intensive occupational therapy to build support for her wrist and thumb on her right arm.

The Atchisons, who were living in Japan at the time, returned to the United States. Scott had stints in the majors for the Mariners (2004-05) and Giants (2007), but had found success in Japan with the Hanshin Tigers of Kyoto, Japan. He returned to the U.S. with a minor-league contract and invitation to the major league camp from the Red Sox.

“We knew Callie would need therapy after surgery. We needed to be closer to her doctors in Dallas,” Scott said. “The team in Japan said they’d help us, I was doing well there and they wanted me to stay, but it was time to come home for Callie.”

While Scott earned his spot in the Red Sox bullpen, Sarah and Callie went through therapy to develop her hand movements. He went 5-4 with a 3.18 ERA in 141.2 innings over 102 appearances with the Red Sox the past three seasons. She began going to school, learning to write to use her thumbs and hands.

Scott missed two months last season with a torn ligament in his pitching elbow. After deciding against surgery, he completely rested the elbow for three weeks and then returned in time to pitch for the Red Sox in September. A 49th-round draft choice after rotator-cuff surgery in college threatened to end his career before it began, he is familiar with injuries.

In baseball, those are considered major obstacles. Watching his daughter learn to make her way in the world, figuring out how to hold a pen or grasp a baseball with her left hand and throw it, however, has put it all in perspective.

“She figures out how to do things. We worried she would have trouble with writing, coloring, cutting when she went to school, but she has found a way,” Atchison said. “It may not be the way I would do it, but she finds a way.

“And she has never let this slow her down. She loves school. The teacher said she is the one who is friends with both the girls and the boys. She just finished her first season of T-ball, and she loves soccer,” he continued. “As a parent, I think we worried about what she might miss out on or might not be able to do, but she doesn’t. She just shows us how she is going to do it.”

Originally Published: April 13, 2013 at 9:11 PM EDT