'Enjoy all the life I have left': Medical Lake High School hosts special basketball game to fulfill two wishes for terminally ill student

Though diagnosed with terminal brain tumors and given a handful of months left to live, Medical Lake High School Senior Owen Pitts has a lot to smile about.

An upcoming Kansas City Chiefs game where he will sit front row, Christmas with his family, his sister’s wedding, his birthday celebration.

But nothing quite brought a crooked grin to the 20-year-old’s face like the tribute planned for him by the high school’s staff. It is meant to fulfill Pitts’ final milestones in his high school career: to play in a varsity basketball game and to graduate.

Pitts achieved both accomplishments Thursday night at a special Medical Lake High School basketball game against Kiona-Benton. Coach Brett Ward put him in the starting line-up, and as soon as he scored a basket, Pitts’ parents dressed him in his cap and gown and his principal gave him an honorary diploma.

“I don’t really know how to describe it,” Pitts said, his half-smile growing thinking of the game. “It feels special.”

“He gets that smile when he talks and thinks about it,” said his mother, Rachel Pitts. “Every time.”

Diagnosed with Leukemia at age 5, Owen Pitts received radiation and chemotherapy for three years. Though he overcame cancer, he had a strong, abnormal reaction to the radiation, leaving him with hearing loss and an IQ drop, Rachel Pitts said.

Owen Pitts spent the next years relishing time with his family, on road trips and vacations to Disney World, once on a Make-A-Wish trip. He enrolled in special education at Hamblen Elementary. In school, he found a love for sports of all kinds, pledging team allegiance to the Kansas City Chiefs and Golden State Warriors, who he devotedly roots for.

Before he enrolled in high school, his family bought a small acreage in Medical Lake where they could live with Owen Pitts’ aging grandparents.

“The support of Medical Lake, it just feels like this is exactly where we needed to be,” Rachel Pitts said.

In high school, he played on his school’s basketball “C” team and ran track, even placing fourth in the ambulatory division of the state track and field competition in the 100- and 200-meter dash.

“I think he loves being part of a team,” Rachel Pitts said. “You seem to really enjoy your teammates,” she said to her son.

In September, a school nurse noticed something was not right with Owen Pitts. He had been getting throbbing migraines, but the years of treatment numbed his pain tolerance and he did not complain. Owen Pitts’ parents rushed him to the emergency room, where an MRI revealed tumors clinging to his brain.

Unbeknownst to his family or his original team of doctors, Owen Pitts has two rare genes: One gene caused a reaction to the radiation to treat his leukemia, which inadvertently brought back his tumors 15 years later.

Doctors surgically removed some of the tumors, but some were too big and too dangerous. In September, his doctor gave Owen Pitts three to six months to live. His family took him out of school to care for him.

“We want him to have a say in this, because he’s been through so much already,” Rachel Pitts said. “I know people look at it like his life has been cut short, but I look at it like we’ve already been given 15 extra years.”

In those 15 years, Owen Pitts found his favorite memories to be time spent with friends and family. He loved going to school and playing sports, his favorite way to pass the time.

“I just like being active,” he said. “The one thing I really wanted to do this year, but I wasn’t able to do, was join the swim team.”

He found a special home on the basketball court, always working for a spot on varsity, basketball coach and teacher Ward said.

“Whenever I’d see him in the hallways, he’d come up to me and say, ‘Oh, coach Ward, I’m going to make varsity next year; I’m going to be working hard,’ ” Ward said. “And I’d say, ‘Owen, I can’t wait. That sounds like a great plan.’ ”

Ward ensured this plan was at least partially realized on Thursday, inviting him to play in the starting lineup.

The team wore special T-shirts, the back reading “Ownership, Willingness, Enthusiasm, Noble,” all traits that Ward said describe Owen Pitts, the first letters spelling out his name.

“That’s something that I focus on with my kids a lot, is owning everything, the positive, the negative, the in-between,” Ward said. “If you take responsibility for all of it, that goes an awful long way to making sure that you’re always growing. And I think he’s a perfect manifestation of that.”

At tip-off, the Medical Lake Cardinals got the ball and passed it along to Owen Pitts, who was waiting at the net to shoot a basket. In two quick attempts, he scored. The home team stands, filled with family, friends, even former elementary school teachers, erupted in raucous cheers. The rest of the team charged the court to give Owen Pitts fist bumps and high-fives as he smiled his crooked smile.

Then, his parents draped him with his cap and gown; he received a diploma and a gift from the team, and he walked off the court to deafening cheers and tears from those in the stands, his coaches and a couple of referees.

“My brother graduated, and it feels like I followed my brother’s steps, since he graduated,” Owen Pitts said.

With the big game behind him and ceremoniously graduated, Owen Pitts is giddy looking forward to his front-row seats at a Chiefs game Sunday. He already has all kinds of Chiefs swag to wear at the big game and is hoping one of the players will sign his jersey.

Owen Pitts is now focused on choosing a senior quote for his yearbook. He has got a few contenders, but nothing solidified yet.

Owen Pitts and his mom said they are taking each day as it comes, thankful for more time spent with each other, knowing nothing is a guarantee. Eternally on the sunny side, Rachel Pitts is a “glass-half-full kind of person,” and while she cries for her son, she also thinks of the 15 years they had together after he beat leukemia as a child.

“Life is very short anyway,” Rachel Pitts said. “This has just really emphasized that, I think. Just like, what’s important, what’s truly important, and really to let the small things go and just enjoy people and family and be the kindest you can be.”

For his part, Owen Pitts is the same “go-lucky kid” he has always been, his mom said, even keeping an up-beat spirit when he gets shots at the doctor’s.

“Honestly,” Owen Pitts said, “right now all I’m trying to do is enjoy all the life I have left.”