This story was featured in ESPN Go blog. Please read the full article here.
Chris Myers leans over his baby Keane, cradled in his wife’s arm in Room 18 of Memorial Hermann Hospital.
When they named him Keane, they didn’t know the name’s roots meant “fighter” and “handsome.” Between his parents, still groggy and numb, the 6-month-old boy continues to fight through his next challenge.
Chris, Houston’s Pro Bowl center, puts his hand on Keane’s soft blonde hair. He lowers his bearded face and kisses his son.
“Keaner, are you in there?” Jenny Myers says gently as she soothes him. She wipes tears from around her eyes and strokes his little right hand with her left thumb.
Blood-caked stitches run down the front of Keane’s face, from the bottom of his newly shaped nose to the sewn-together upper lip that makes a peak at the center. His lips never fused together in his mother’s womb. Neither did the roof of his mouth. At birth, the flesh that should have made up the underside of his nose down to the center of his upper lip protruded in a pink bulb in the center of his face, detached from the other sides of his lip. He needs special equipment to eat. Without surgeries, speaking would be a challenge….
Please read the full article here