CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — It was a few days before Christmas in 2009 when Aaron Ashley decided he didn't want to live anymore. Less than 12 months earlier, Ashley was regarded as one of the top high school basketball players in Ohio, a can't-miss college prospect with two years of high school basketball in front of him. But now,...
Cleveland Heights boys basketball senior Aaron Ashley has dealt with a broken leg, mononucleosis, pancreatitis, suicidal thoughts and Guillain-Barr syndrome, an acute neurological disorder that can cause partial paralysis of several muscle groups, to become a college prospect again. - (John Kuntz l PD)
CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — It was a few days before Christmas in 2009 when Aaron Ashley decided he didn't want to live anymore.
Less than 12 months earlier, Ashley was regarded as one of the top high school basketball players in Ohio, a can't-miss college prospect with two years of high school basketball in front of him. But now, he lay ill in University Hospital, feeling as low as someone could feel when he summoned his father to his bedside.
Sylvester Ashley remembers the day his youngest of six children spoke the words no parent wants to hear.
"I want to die. I'm tired of going through all this. I want to give up. I don't want to live anymore. Not like this."
Said his father: "They had my son on suicide watch. They had a nurse in his room around the clock. It breaks your heart."
Sylvester Ashley, 55, remembers his first reactions were of disbelief and denial.
"This can't be happening," he remembers saying to himself. "This can't happen, and I won't let it happen."
Sylvester Ashley admits he had never been an overly spiritual man, but he knew it was time to ask for help from a higher power.
"I told Aaron right there that he had to believe in God and that he had to put himself in God's hands," he said. "I told him he had to have faith in God and that he was going to pull through this. And I told him he had to pray. We all prayed, and we prayed a lot."
The Aaron Ashley story has a happy ending but not before it alternated between anguish, fright, faith, hope, recovery, relief and, ultimately, a joy beyond belief. It is a story that went for miles but whose chapters are measured in baby steps.
"It's a miracle, is what it is," said Sylvester Ashley. "A miracle."
Aaron Ashley, 19, has rallied from the depths of depression and near-death caused by a series of illnesses to a regular kid whose basketball future is burning bright once again.
"When I look back at it, I feel I was very blessed," he said.
'Basketball was his life'
When Ashley was a young boy growing up in Cleveland Heights, he became enamored with basketball.
"He was more than a kid who liked basketball," said Cleveland Heights coach Barry Egan. "Basketball was his life. The game meant everything to him. He was obsessed."
Yet Ashley's initial venture into organized basketball in the fifth grade was dismal.
"It wasn't good," Ashley said, shaking his head and smiling. "I had no coordination, no footwork. I was a work in progress. I loved the game, but I got no playing time on my youth team. I went home crying and complaining to my dad that they wouldn't let me play."
Ashley, a soft-spoken, easy-going kid who usually keeps to himself in the company of strangers, used his poor start as a learning experience.
"It made me want to work harder, to practice more," he said. "It inspired me to get better. I worked every day. I started to catch on. I started to feel that I could be a pretty good player."
It worked. So did Ashley. Over the next few years, he spent hours working at the game, practicing or playing whenever he could. By the time he was 12, he was regarded as one of the top eighth-graders in Northeast Ohio and became the talk of the AAU circuit. He led Monticello Middle School to an undefeated season, averaging 17 points and 10 rebounds. As a freshman, he excelled as a member of Cleveland Heights' junior varsity team. As a sophomore, he was promoted to a varsity team loaded with talent. He was the first player off the bench and averaged about 10 points as the Tigers reached a Division I district final.
"I was OK with coming off the bench," said Ashley, who had grown to 6-4 and about 185 pounds and figured to be an integral part of Egan's plans for the 2008-09 season. "I felt I still had a lot to prove."
Ashley, who by this point had become an excellent perimeter shooter, was anxious for his junior season to start. Stardom and a college scholarship seemed just around the corner.
"I've had 61 players earn Division I scholarships during my coaching career," said Egan, in his fifth season at the school with previous stops at Troy and Marion Harding. "And I'm telling you, Aaron was a shoo-in. He was that good."
Ashley had spent the previous summer playing AAU ball for the King James All-Stars, run by St. Vincent-St. Mary coach Dru Joyce.
"We had a very good team that year with a lot of high-profile, Division I kids," said Joyce. "Aaron was our most consistent player. But, besides that, he was a joy to be around. He was a very respectful kid, a great kid to have on your team."
The play that changed his life
Dec. 5, 2008. Opening night of the 2008-09 high school season against visiting Solon. Heights was on the verge of taking control of the game early in the fourth quarter when Ashley went airborne for an offensive rebound. It was a play that would change his life.
"I went for a tip-dunk," he said, describing the move in which a player gets a hand on a rebound and slams the ball in one motion before returning to the ground.
A common three-player collision occurred. Ashley hit the floor first. Two players landed on his leg. A chilling "cr-a-a-c-k" rang through the gym. Ashley screamed in pain and began crawling across the floor in search of help. Witnesses said it was one of the most ghastly injuries they had ever seen.
"I knew right away that it was serious," said Tigers assistant coach Trevon Chesney, who was one of the first people to arrive at Ashley's side and is one of his biggest supporters. "I just held his hand and told him it would be all right."
The tibia and fibula bones in his left leg had been snapped. Ashley's junior season, which had been filled with so much promise, was over after less than 30 minutes. He spent four days in the hospital. Chesney spent much of it with him.
"That first night I was in so much pain, I wanted them to cut my leg off," Ashley said.
"It was tough to watch," said Chesney. "I asked myself more than once, 'Why him?' "
Of course, nobody knew the broken leg was just the beginning of a gut-wrenching, frightening nightmare that would last almost two years.
'Just a bump in the road'
By fall 2009, Ashley had recovered from the broken leg after having a titanium rod inserted, spending five months in an ankle-to-thigh cast and undergoing extensive rehab.
"I thought the broken leg was just a bump in the road," he said.
He was anxious for his senior season to begin. But in September, he began experiencing severe stomach pain and constipation. Treatment provided only temporary relief. A voracious eater, he had a hard time keeping food inside, running to the bathroom after every meal. More doctor visits resolved nothing. The pain increased, and he began feeling weak. He had a hard time climbing stairs.
"It got to the point where I couldn't feel my legs," he said. "I was crawling around the house."
On Oct. 5, he fell while walking from the shower to his bedroom. He was admitted to the hospital. Then came the diagnosis.
He had mononucleosis, pancreatitis and Guillain-Barr syndrome, an acute neurological disorder that can cause partial paralysis of several muscle groups. Doctors aren't sure how he contracted Guillain-Barr , which is rare, especially among young people. There is no immediate cure for Guillain-Barr . It has to run its course, and recovery time varies from patient to patient. At one point, Ashley went two weeks without eating, being fed intravenously.
There was no relief
Days turned to weeks and eventually weeks turned to months with Ashley confined to a hospital bed. His parents visited daily. Occasionally, he would be released, only to return a few days later. Tests were followed by more tests. He was prescribed as many as 20 medications. He was poked and probed. Nothing worked, and there was no relief. By mid-November, he had come to a disheartening conclusion.
There would be no basketball. With his junior season lost to the broken leg, he now realized his senior year would be lost, too. All his hopes and dreams were gone.
"It was bad," Ashley said. "The worst. Thinking that all I had worked for was gone. All I could do was lay there. I got very depressed."
Ashley speaks slowly and quietly when he recalls the lowest point of his life.
"I didn't want to live anymore," he said. "I was in so much pain, and I couldn't eat, and I was always going to the bathroom. I couldn't walk, couldn't get out of bed. I told my dad I wanted to die."
His condition worsened, and his weight loss was alarming. He went from about 190 pounds to 124 -- on a 6-4 frame. A feeding tube was inserted, but the trips to the bathroom continued. The pain intensified.
"I never saw anything like it," said Ashley's mother, Pamela Ashley. "All you could see of him were skin and his ribs. We never felt he was going to die, but I never thought he'd ever be able to play basketball again. I will never forget it."
Said Egan: "When you went to visit him in the hospital, the bed just seemed to swallow him up. At one point, you could see the screws they had put in his leg. It was very hard to see."
Ashley's sickness and lengthy hospital stays took its toll on the family.
"We argued," Pamela Ashley said, "because we didn't have any answers. At one point, I asked the doctors: 'Are you sure my son doesn't have cancer? He is disappearing right in front of my eyes, and he is in pain.' They assured me he didn't have cancer."
'I deserved another chance'
Slowly, the miracle Ashley's family and friends had hoped and prayed for began to show itself. His appetite returned. He was able to keep food down, and the trips to the bathroom were less frequent. His father said he knew his son was on the right track in February 2010 when Ashley asked for some of his dad's barbecued ribs.
"They're the best," said the son. "He's known all over Ohio for them."
Ashley was not home free. While in the hospital, he continued to grow, and three of his toes curled downward. They had to be broken and reset, and Ashley spent another two months in a stabilizing boot.
In April, Egan and Cleveland Heights administrators applied to the Ohio High School Athletic Association to grant Ashley another year of athletic eligibility. It was approved in June.
"That was a blessing," said Ashley, now 6-5 and 185 pounds. "I felt I deserved another chance."
By everyone's account, Ashley is not back to the form he showed before the foot injury and illnesses. Still, the belief is he is capable of playing at the Division I or Division II college level. He returned to the court on Dec. 3 -- opening night of the 2010-11 season -- and has helped lead the Tigers to an 11-2 record and No. 5 ranking in The Plain Dealer Top 25 poll entering tonight's game at No. 3 Mentor. A forward and the first player off the bench, he is averaging 10 points and nearly five rebounds per game.
"I know I lost a lot, more than I ever thought I would," he said of his absence from the game. "But I feel I can play my way back."
Why not? He's come back from much deeper depths.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: trogers@plaind.com, 216-999-5169