Published - Monday, March 27, 2006
ABOVE AND BEYOND: Lanesboro senior still in the game
LANESBORO,
Ten
years ago, doctors diagnosed Andrew with a cancerous brain tumor. A growth the
size of a pear was lodged at the base of the 7-year-old’s skull, weaving its
tentacles down Andrew’s spine, pinching nerves that controlled his ambulatory
and digestive systems.
After weeks of radiation and steroid therapy,
Andrew’s parents were faced with two choices: continue steroid therapy to reduce
the swelling and commit Andrew to a slow death or agree to risky surgery that
could cause unknown complications.
Their decision saved Andrew’s life,
but he would face lifelong complications because of the tumor and the
treatment.
After the surgery, Andrew endured seven months on a feeding
tube, six months immobilized in head traction, surgery that removed hip and rib
bones to fuse his neck back together, and several years living with a breathing
tube inserted in his trachea.
As Andrew became a teenager, other boys
grew faster than him and were able to play competitive sports. Andrew showed
athletic promise but couldn’t participate because the activity could snap the
fused bones in his neck.
Andrew never complained, but David could tell
his son was feeling down.
Years of struggle
Andrew said he
learned to deal with his disappointment by becoming manager of the basketball
and football teams at
“This is a powerful story to survive, but
I find just as remarkable his ability to overcome this and be the person that he
has become,” wrote high school Principal Brett Clarke. “His medical obstacles
prevent him from participating on the fields and courts, but you will find him
on the sidelines of most practices and games, helping his friends win any way
that he can.”
Because doctors removed part of his skull and split five
vertebrae to remove the brain tumor, they had to take bone from Andrew’s hip and
ribs to meld his neck back together.
Today, Andrew’s neck is the same
size as it was when he was 8 years old. He can’t twist his head sideways and can
only tilt it slightly downward.
Andrew’s dad and stepmom, Joan, said the
only reason the surgeon attempted the surgery is because he thought he saw a
delineation between the tumor and Andrew’s spine. The surgery, however, was
still a gamble.
“A little boy trusts his father implicitly, yet I felt
like I was leading him to slaughter,” David said. “Nobody expected the complete
success the doctor felt he achieved.”
Andrew’s relatives helped care for
him as he recovered from the surgery, which occurred while David and Joan had a
new baby and David’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The Ruens’ dining room was turned into a hospital room where
Andrew was hooked to a ventilator and a feeding tube at night.
“He never
complained as a little kid — he was trusting and obedient,” his dad
said.
In 1998, Andrew’s trachea tube was removed. He still uses a special
breathing device at night because his lungs were permanently weakened by the
steroid therapy.
His physical growth also was permanently stunted from
the nerve compression.
Looking to the future
After so many years under the close watch of his friends and
family, Andrew is preparing to head out on his own.
He plans to study
chemical engineering next year at
“I hear there is a college
in
In college, Andrew would like to continue managing a football
team.
He said it was difficult to watch his friends play football in
seventh grade, but by managing the team, he could still participate. Andrew
considered it his charge to help the players become as good as they could
be.
“The more I helped out, the more it made it easier to deal with,” he
said. “Now it doesn’t really bother me.”
Golf is the one sport Andrew can
participate in, and he gets up early before school to practice. His ability to
hit the ball without tilting his head amazes others.
Andrew also has
managed the basketball team since he was in seventh grade.
Basketball
coach John Smith said he could always count on Andrew to perform whatever task
needed to be done, and said he wasn’t afraid to give advice during
games.
“He was always pretty straight-forward. He knows the other teams
just as well as I do,” said Smith, who also is an assistant golf coach and the
dean of students. “He’s been a great asset to our program.”
Smith said
he’s confident Andrew will succeed at whatever he does next.
David’s
family said they don’t think Andrew would be alive if God didn’t have something
special planned.
Andrew doesn’t doubt divine intervention.
Student’s death
makes life’s big lesson
David Ruen knew God had something
big in mind for his son.
Why else would Andrew’s life have been saved by
a miracle?
Eleven years ago, David decided to take a chance and have his
7-year-old son undergo a risky surgery to remove a brain tumor. The surgery was
successful, a feat that still amazes Andrew’s Mayo neurosurgeon.
“I would
tell him, ‘It was a miracle. God’s keeping you around for something big, so
don’t screw it up,’” David said.
When Andrew died in his sleep Saturday
while on a senior class trip to
Andrew had just been preparing for that “something
big” — he worked hard in school, spent countless hours as the team manager of
nearly every sport, learned how to play golf despite his physical limitations
and was looking forward to attending Texas Tech next fall.
He had been
cut short, on the verge of big. Or so David thought.
Then the phone calls
started coming. First, it was a student the family didn’t know who called to
tell David about the impact Andy had on his life. Another student several towns
away had met Andrew once but called to say he thought he was amazing. Then there
was the young man who composed a poem and wanted to organize a
vigil.
“Then it dawned on me: This is the big thing,” David said. “His
big thing was to weave himself in the fabric of the lives of students and
parents and bring the community together.”
Today at 3:30 p.m. that same
community will come together in the
Andrew couldn’t do the
things most kids could. He was limited by the brain tumor and subsequent
surgeries that almost cost his life. He couldn’t turn his head. The right side
of his body didn’t work as well as the left. His sense of balance was
shaky.
He dreamed of playing basketball or football, but that was
impossible. Unfazed by his limitations, he embraced the role of a manager,
quickly learning to delegate the task of carrying water to underclassmen,
becoming an unofficial assistant coach — cheering, instructing and
inspiring.
He was a fixture at games and a regular in the weight room
where he would lift, strengthening his body for his passion — golf.
David
said his son had an excellent short game and solid intermediate game but
struggled with the long drive.
“He was right-handed, but used his left to
drive the ball. He couldn’t turn his head, and he had to be careful about his
balance,” David said. “To top that off, he had flat feet. But he never let that
stop him.”
Andrew planned to study chemical engineering in college. He
wanted to study metals and design golf clubs. He had already signed up to work
on the Texas Tech golf course.
“I asked him why he wanted to do that, and
he said, ‘The greens fees are $700 a semester. How else am I going to pay for
that?’” David said.
Though David’s voice quivered a few times Tuesday,
his pride shone through obvious pain.
“We are hearing all these great
stories,” David said. “As a parent, I never realized how he could work a room —
not like a politician, but he just wanted to listen. He just wanted to
participate.”
That desire made Andrew work harder to mask his
disabilities, David said.
Few knew about the countless hours spent down
by the bass pond with the hay bales when Andrew practiced parallel parking in
preparation for a driving test.
“Do you realize how hard it is to
parallel park using just mirrors?” David said. “He couldn’t turn his
head.”
Andrew had taken to heart what David had called “Operation
Bootstrap.” David often reminded his son that he should be independent and not
expect help from anyone. By his senior year, Operation Bootstrap had become a
philosophy of determination.
“A few weeks ago, I asked him, ‘Is
everything going OK?’ And he told me, ‘Dad, I am a senior — every day is better
than the last,’” David said. “And now, he’ll be our senior for life. He left
life an optimist.”
Fortitude
Andrew Ruen lived by two
quotations, which hung on his bedroom walls:
· Mental toughness can take you to the top,
weakness to the bottom.
Obstacles are those
frightening things that happen when we take our eyes off our goals.
Award
winner
Andrew Ruen was awarded the 2006 Lanesboro High School Above and
Beyond award two weeks ago. The award is sponsored by
Read more about Andrew Ruen at http://www.winonadailynews.com/articles/2006/03/27/school/00wdnlrn.txtclear