Trauma patient who lost his mom is finding joy again

By Maureen Gilmer, Riley Children’s Health senior writer, mgilmer1@iuhealth.org

As he looks over at his son, tucked in close to him on a couch at the Riley Outpatient Center, John Charters shares a bit of advice.

“Make everything count. You’re not promised tomorrow.”

The father of two speaks from painful experience, even as 10-year-old Chance Charters gives him the side eye frequently as father and son talk following a Riley appointment.

Charters and his kids have made the most of all the tomorrows they’ve been given since an auto accident one year ago last month critically injured Chance and took the life of his mom, Amanda Charters, near the family’s home in Roachdale, Indiana.

Chance, who suffered a traumatic brain injury, was LifeLined to Riley Hospital for Children, where he would go on to endure multiple surgeries and extensive rehab.

It took a team of doctors, surgeons, advanced-practice providers, nurses and therapists to put Chance back together again last year, starting with an 11-hour surgery that first day at Riley.

As the general surgeon, Dr. Robert Burns was the captain in the operating room that February day, which stretched into night. He opened Chance’s abdomen to check for internal organ damage. That’s when he found the boy’s bladder was ruptured, so urology surgeon Dr. Benjamin Whittam was called in to repair that damage.

Meanwhile, vascular surgeon Dr. Ashley Gutwein focused on an artery in Chance’s left thigh, where blood flow was compromised. In addition, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Aki Puryear joined the effort to stabilize the boy’s broken pelvis with an external fixator and stabilized the bones in his extremities.

Later, Dr. Luke Lopas from IU Health Methodist Hospital’s orthopedic trauma service came to Riley to repair Chance’s pelvis.

By April of last year, Chance was learning to walk again, feed himself again and become semi-independent again during a lengthy stay in Riley’s inpatient rehab unit.

In the past year, the boy and his dad have made many, many trips to Riley for follow-up visits.

“I’ve been around this building a time or two,” John Charters said. “I know my way around.”

That includes an inpatient stay over Thanksgiving week last year after Chance developed an infection that required another surgery.

“At least we got some pumpkin pie and ice cream,” Chance said about that unexpected stay in the hospital. But he took advantage of those days to flirt with the nurses and find out where all the toys are kept.

“He owned that hall up there on the eighth floor,” his dad said. “He had those nurses wrapped around his finger.”

Most recently, the pair saw Dr. Whittam in the urology clinic to see how Chance’s bladder was healing.

“He put it all back together,” John Charters said of the surgeon. “We’re all good now. There are a few things they’ll keep watching, but he thinks we’re out of the woods.”

At that last comment, Chance nods his head, even as he concentrates intently on his Switch, breaking into little upper-body dance moves as he plays a game.

“A dancing fool,” his dad says, laughing as Chance glares at him. “He’ll come through the living room sometimes doing the ‘griddy.’”

Charters treasures those glimpses of Chance’s personality – his humor, his sarcasm, as it gives him hope that his son is on his way to becoming whole again, even as he and his sisters miss their mom desperately.

“It’s been rough, different, weird. I still can’t believe it. You expect to come home and be able to talk and there’s nobody there to talk to.”

He and his kids are “pretty tight,” he said, and they visit the kids’ grandparents in Illinois frequently, which helps.

Chance loves baseball and basketball, but this spring seemed too early to put him back into baseball, his dad said. Basketball is still on the table for the fall, depending on what orthopedics physician assistant Todd Osterbur says after their April appointment at IU Health West Hospital.

Chance’s right ankle is still not quite healed, but he doesn’t have a noticeable limp, his dad says.

For now, he enjoys fishing and playing catch, in addition to video games. The family goes camping whenever they can, and this year they are headed to Florida for spring break.

A fifth-grader, Chance says he doesn’t care much for school, with the exception of lunch, recess and science.

Homework is a challenge for father and son.

“It’s a learning curve for all of us without Mandy,” Charters said.

But they are making their way, day by day.

Photos submitted and by Mike Dickbernd, IU Health visual journalist, mdickbernd@iuhealth.org