Comeback Kid - Former McIntosh pitcher bounces back to baseball after battling brain tumor

Last year, Jarrod Parker, a Peachtree City resident and graduate of McIntosh High School, noticed a lump on the back of his head. It was his freshman year of college and when he shaved his head he could tell it looked a little strange. He went to the doctor, had x-rays and a CAT scan done, but it was still inconclusive what the lump was. An MRI told him it was a tumor.

“It never hurt, there were never any headaches or anything like that,” Parker said of the time leading up to the tumor’s discovery. “The doctors couldn’t believe I had no symptoms because it was worse than it looked. They were shocked.”

The tumor was the size of a baseball, which is ironic because Parker was a two-time MVP pitcher for the Chiefs and had been a relief pitcher who had worked his way up to a starting pitcher at Jackson State Community College in Tennessee. On Jan. 6, 2009, the neurosurgeon told Parker and his family that the situation was serious and that it required immediate surgery. The tumor had lifted his skull 2” and was also pressing down on his brain. There were blood clots and because the tumor was on the right side of his brain, it was effecting the left side of his body. Two days later, the surgery, a five and half hour long ordeal, took place.

The neurosurgeon told Parker there would be at least some temporary paralysis on the left side of his body. He was unsure how long it would last. There was a chance he might not walk again and his baseball playing days might be a thing of the past as well.

“I couldn’t feel my left leg or my hands at first,” Parker recalled, adding that sensation came back slowly. After a week in the hospital, Parker moved on to a week and a half at the Emory Rehab Center where there was physical, speech, occupational and recreational therapy. He progressed from a wheelchair to walking with a cane and brace for his left foot that prevented him from dragging it.

After some more outpatient therapy, Parker endured six weeks of radiation at the Winship Cancer Center. Through it all, Parker had no doubts about what his goals were or his ability to obtain them. He would be back in school in the fall and pitching again in 2010.

“I had such good support from my family and friends,” Parker said, when asked what kept his spirits up and had made him so determined to make what is nothing short of a miraculous comeback. He added that many of his baseball coaches and teammates visited him, sent food over for his family and kept abreast of his situation when he was in the hospital. After radiation, when he was ready to start slowly working out again, he saw them all again at places like Home Plate and found even more encouragement and support from the sport he loved.

“The rehab went so quick and the progress was so good, that I saw them as signs that I would make a good recovery,” said Parker.

It was hard work getting back into playing shape and it was slow going at first as Parker’s body was exhausted from the surgery, rehab and radiation. He started working out with his college team again this fall, doing a lot of running by the end of the year, and estimates he is at 90 percent in his recovery.

Parker is a sophomore majoring in health and physical education and his goal is to play baseball for as long as he can. He balks at calling his comeback a miracle, but he knows he is fortunate to be where he is today. When he takes the mound for the first time in a real game again this spring, he will have the knowledge that after staring down a frightening and uncertain future, staring down a batter is nothing.