Thursday, August 13, 2015

Paralyzed 3-Year-Old Boy Has 'Simple, Humble' Wish Fulfilled


When the Make-A-Wish Foundation approached Kellan Tilton, promising they'd try to fulfill his deepest desire, the 3-year-old could’ve asked for anything in the world: a trip to Disneyland, perhaps, or a meeting with his favorite athlete or celebrity.

But Kellan had something else in mind. He told the organization that all he wanted was a way to easily get from his Maine house to the barn on the property where his dad and his seven siblings spend a lot of their free time.

"He could have taken a trip anywhere," the organization’s marketing director Sonya Purington told CBS News. "For him, what was most important was to be able to go outside and -- as he said -- 'wheel myself from my house down to the barn.'" Kellan uses a wheelchair to get around. When he was born, doctors discovered a cancerous tumor in his abdomen and spine, prompting several rounds of chemotherapy and a nearly 10-hour surgery to remove the growth.

Kellan is now cancer-free, but the position of the tumor left the child paralyzed from the waist down. Kellan can drive his wheelchair "better than anybody can drive a car now," said his dad, Dan Tilton; but the boy still has difficulty at times getting around the family's property.

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