a few steps in a long journey
Richwoods senior battles diseases to get diploma
May 29, 2003
By KRIS WERNOWSKY
of the Journal Star
link to article
PEORIA - It was a restless night before graduation for 18-year-old Aaron McKnight.
"I was very nervous. I got up at 4 a.m.," he said. "I couldn't sleep."
Aaron, a Richwoods High School senior, was one of nearly 800 students set to graduate from District 150 high schools. He planned to do something special at Wednesday's ceremony - walk across the stage to get his diploma. He wasn't supposed to do that, but he was going to try.
That walk would be the latest step in a journey that started on Memorial Day in 1992, when a 7-year-old Aaron and his brother, Christopher McKnight, were participating in a karate tournament.
"I just kept holding my head. I had really bad headaches," he said.
His mother, Theresa McKnight, 43, was worried.
"My aunt said, 'You'd better get him to a doctor. That's a sign of a brain tumor,' " she said.
The doctor told the McKnights that Aaron had a migraine and the flu. He went home but began vomiting the next day. His mother took him to the emergency room.
"He had a CAT scan, and the next thing I know, he's in the (intensive care unit) at (OSF) Saint Francis (Medical Center)," she recalled.
Aaron was diagnosed with craniopharyngioma, a cystic growth that developed in his brain. His mother said almost immediately Aaron was in an operating room having surgery to remove the growth.
After two more surgeries, one when he was 8 and another when he was 10, and a series of radiation treatments, Aaron was on the road to recovery.
But after surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids, Aaron became severely dehydrated. He was taken to the hospital again, and doctors discovered his heart was pausing for periods of up to 25 seconds.
"Then I had to get a pacemaker," he said.
That is when Aaron started eating.
"I ate so much because of my medicine," he said.
In fact, Aaron said his weight peaked at 460 pounds. It was difficult for him to walk even small distances without getting short of breath.
Aaron used a wheelchair to stay mobile, but his mother knew that even though he had beaten cancer and a faulty heart, his weight was going to kill him.
Last June, he decided to do something about his obesity.
"They'd been talking about gastric bypass," Aaron said, but another surgery wasn't welcome.
The Atkins Diet was his choice. The high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet helped him lose more than 75 pounds. His goal is to lose 190 more.
Now Aaron can walk around the grocery store with his mother, something that, 75 pounds ago, would make him extremely tired. But there is one place he still wanted to walk.
"Since I lost weight, I decided I am going to walk across that stage," he said.
At the Richwoods ceremony, Aaron took his place at the end of the fifth row of students. He still was in his wheelchair. The counselors began going through the list of more than 250 names.
When it was time for Aaron to get in line, he moved his wheelchair, with his legs, toward the stage. As the list drew closer to Aaron's name, he pushed himself to the edge of the stage and out of his wheelchair.
After a few labored steps, Aaron strolled across the stage. His family and friends clapped and cheered as he grabbed his diploma.
"Ten years ago, who knew if he was going to make it to graduation?" Theresa McKnight said.