To arms: Elyria's Myles Grimmett weathers risky cancer surgery, thrives for Pioneers JV basketball team

Myles Grimmett drills a jump shot and runs down the court. The people in the stands — those who don't know him well — have no idea how remarkable that everyday occurrence is. The lengthy scars on his lower left leg and upper right arm are visible up close but only scratch the surface in telling Grimmett's astonishing story of medicine, science, resilience and good fortune. His mom, Brittney Atkinson, watches in awe when he takes the floor as a starting wing on Elyria's junior varsity basketball team. "A miracle," she said. "It's almost become so normal recently because it has been awhile. But when he first started getting really into it, it was mind-blowing. Never would've thought in a million years." Grimmett, 15, was named the Jim Donovan Courage Award winner and will receive the honor Thursday at the 26th Greater Cleveland Sports Awards at Rocket Arena. He'll be surrounded by some of the biggest names in Northeast Ohio sports. "It's an award that I didn't even know about beforehand, and just learning about the award was just a good experience," the sophomore said. "Hopefully I can meet some NBA players." FINDING A WAY When Grimmett was 5 he had a mass the size of a softball growing from just below the right shoulder. It was a rare and aggressive form of bone cancer, metastatic osteosarcoma. "When I asked him, 'Hey, Myles, did you notice that your arm was getting swollen?' he goes, 'Yeah, I just thought I was getting bigger muscles,'" orthopedic surgeon Dr. Nathan Mesko said. The cancer had overtaken the upper part of the humerus bone, which needed to be removed. Grimmett's age and size eliminated many of the traditional reconstruction options. Implants aren't made for a 5-year-old and there aren't cadaveric bones in the bone bank. With the goal of avoiding amputation, Mesko sought alternatives. He consulted with peers from across the country and read papers. The first option was using the clavicle, but Grimmett had broken his, so that was out. Mesko pivoted to the fibula, the smaller bone in the lower leg, landing on a more complex surgery he had never performed. A decade later he's only done one more. He said one or two are done in the U.S. in a year. "That may even be a big estimate," Mesko said. The 19-hour operation included removing 70 percent of the humerus to take out all the cancer and replacing the bone with the fibula. The doctors had to preserve the blood supply of the fibula and re-create the flow after it had been moved, with a plastic surgeon tying the blood vessels under a microscope. "It's certainly an all-day affair, four quarters plus overtime," Mesko said. He described the scope of procedures as a symphony. He served as the conductor. Mesko worked with pediatric oncologist Dr. Peter Anderson to coordinate the chemotherapy and the plan for removing the tumor. Plastic surgeon Dr. Graham Schwarz reconstructed the arm, joining Mesko in the operating room. "One's working on the leg, the other is working on the arm," Mesko said. "I take the tumor out, he's harvesting the fibula. And then at some point in the operation, when we're both done, we look at each other, high-five and we swap spots and the leg bone gets taken to the arm and he starts the reconstruction part of putting the blood supply together. "And I reconstruct the knee because when we borrow the bone from the leg, it creates a ligament instability issue at the knee joint. And so I have to reconstruct the ligaments down there. And then when we're done with those parts, then we both end up working on the arm again in order to put a little plate on, get fixation, reconstruct the shoulder, muscles around that area." Atkinson remembered being "so scared" when the surgery was explained. "I obviously was freaking out, but they pretty much said, 'Hey, if it was five years ago, he would've lost his arm, so we're going to do everything we can,'" she said. Grimmett was too young to consent to the surgery, but Mesko wanted the patient to understand. After explaining it, Mesko asked him to draw a picture of what was going to be done. "It was this just mind-blowing moment for me to see a 5-year-old draw exactly what we were going to do down to the fact that the leg had two bones and then a big bone and a small bone," Mesko said. "He had the small bone circled. He had an arrow pointing to the shoulder. He had a cancer drawn on the shoulder. And it's one of those moments in life that you just don't forget. "That little piece of paper that is all crinkled up but still on our board is one of the most memorable things that I will probably ever have in my career." Grimmett vaguely remembers drawing the picture. "I feel like I have the memories of thinking of how to draw it and remembering how my brother taught me how to draw people," he said of Rondell, who's 2½ years old and a star for the Pioneers. "The only thing I was ever scared of was if they had needles or something. That was about it." "He handled it like a champion," Atkinson said. "The only time he would cry is if he would see the family cry and then he would just cry because we were crying. "He was a warrior through all of it." AGAINST ALL ODDS The Pioneers sharpshooter who also plays AAU ball was never expected to make it to the court. The obstacles were numerous and daunting, even after the surgery was a success. "No. 1, the most important thing is that Myles has beat the odds from frankly being alive," Mesko said. The cancer had spread to his lungs, and he had a small surgery and chemotherapy. The survival rate for making it five years with metastatic osteosarcoma is around 20 percent. "I distinctly remember looking at (Atkinson) and saying, 'Right now, my goal is to save your son's life. And if he has his arm in five years, I will consider that extra credit,'" Mesko said. Grimmett is disease-free 10 years later. "That's obviously a giant celebration," Mesko said. "I have zero restrictions for him. The last time I saw him in the office, I said, 'Drop down and give me 10.'" Then there's the basketball. The arm and leg function well enough for him to play at a high level. "It is really, really hard to see when he pushes off the leg for a layup or when he obviously puts the ball up into the hoop with his operative arm to tell a difference," Mesko said. "So when I say I can't believe he's doing what he's doing, talking about a kid, 80 percent chance he should have been dead based on the metastatic disease, a kid who I took his dominant arm, turned his leg into his arm, and I'm watching him start on his basketball team. Not in a thousand years would I have predicted that." The recovery has largely been smooth, but a bump turned out to be a blessing. The lucky break was a fracture of the new arm bone. First, using the leg bone allowed for more growth potential than the clavicle would have, so his right arm is "pretty darn close" to the length of his left arm. Then three months after surgery, Grimmett's arm broke. He was innertube sumo wrestling with his cousin — bouncing against each other like the rotund wrestlers — and fell on the arm. "I left him alone for five minutes at a family reunion to use the restroom and it happened," Atkinson said. "It actually sped along the process of the bone turning into an arm bone," Mesko said. "You got this tiny, dinky little fibula that's like the size of a toothpick that we reconstruct his arm with. And when it broke, the healing process caused this thing to turn into the Hulk. Like we had injected steroids in this thing and it just turned into this normal-looking bone similar to the size of his other bone." LEARNING TO ADAPT Grimmett's jump shot gets even more impressive after "The Princess Bride" reveal — he's not left-handed. "I can't write with my left hand," he said. "It's really just for sports and stuff." He taught himself to play basketball as a southpaw because the left arm didn't have limitations. "When I started playing basketball, that was around the time that I had everything going on, so I basically started playing basketball with my left hand," he said. "So it was really just learning how to play basketball." Atkinson saw him work at it until it became second nature. "He dribbled like it was nothing, and then before you know it, he just got better at baskets," she said. "And then it just became so natural to him." Junior varsity coach Keenan Williams didn't even know Grimmett is right-handed. "I don't understand how he did it," Rondell Grimmett said. "It's natural. He can shoot the ball. That's what he does." Grimmett is a double-figure scorer and expected to be on the varsity next season. He got past a foot drop after the surgery — the nerve had been traumatized — and the reconstructed knee ligaments have stayed solid and haven't stretched out, allowing him to cut and start and stop on a dime. "He's got a leg that essentially functions normal," Mesko said. The right arm works well, but there are limitations. Grimmett has to be careful in the weight room and certain passes and catches can be difficult. "It's not enough that it affects the game at all," Williams said. "That's a testament to what he's been able to do to overcome it." "Nothing that you can't work through," Grimmett said. "Just by having to work just a little bit harder, having to work harder than others, just to have the bare minimum." Rondell began playing in the fifth grade and said Grimmett "just hopped on with it." "We just hooped our whole life," Rondell said. That includes 6 a.m. shooting sessions before school. "They put in a lot of work," Pioneers varsity coach Brett Larrick said. "They go everywhere together. They've got a great relationship." Larrick said while Grimmett's journey is undeniably special, it's not the focus in the gym. "For the most part, we don't really think about it," Larrick said. "I don't think he thinks about it on the floor. I don't think he wants to think about it on the floor. And to show you what type of kid he is, he doesn't want any of this (attention). He just wants to be a basketball player. "And to us, he's a basketball player. He's part of our program. He's a teammate of all these guys, and that's all he wants to be." For Atkinson, it was the last few years when watching her son play no longer felt extraordinary. "Seventh grade is when he started getting good and you really didn't realize it anymore," she said. "And then I would say ninth grade we never even thought about it again. It was so normal."Larrick described Grimmett as "very quiet" and "humble." "Awesome kid," Williams said. "Always smiling, always positive, really, really good teammate. He's the kid that his smile lights up the room. "Just honored to be part of his story." That's a sentiment shared by many. "Everybody I think is mesmerized by the big surgery and by the cool outcome," Mesko said. "But I think if we just take a step back, probably the bigger story is the human being that was created because of it. And I think that's not just Myles. I think all of us were changed because of it." Grimmett is 15. He's worried about offense, defense, school and teenager stuff. But "every here and there" he reflects on everything that's transpired in the last decade. "I'll really just sit there and think, man, I really had cancer," he said. "Because growing up it didn't feel like I had it. It just felt regular." That's exactly how he looks on the court. Contact Scott Petrak at (440) 329-7253 or spetrak@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @scottpetrak on X.