Connor Cummings is showing the intestinal fortitude of an elite athlete.

Because that’s who he is on the inside.

On the outside you might mistake him for the 12-year-old Beaty sixth-grader in a walking boot.

Don’t make that mistake.

There was a point in the past two years that the good-looking young man would have traded anything to get out of the cast on his left leg, the walking boot, or to get rid of the constant pain he has suffered day in and day out.

Anything.

He still might say he would do that, depending on when you ask him. He’s often out, with his big brothers, in the back yard playing Wiffle Ball. It’s who he is; his mind – the mind of a little boy, a little athlete – begging his body to run like he used to.

But that’s not all Connor is; not anymore.

“He told me that one of the biggest things he wanted to say, but couldn’t without tearing up,” said his mother, Chris, “was that even though he’s always in pain, he thinks about all the kids who have cancer who don’t know what their future holds, and the kids who have a disability and they can’t go outside and run around. He says that it gives him the strength to go outside and play all day, even if it means being in horrible pain for hours at night, and to be thankful that he still has the ability to do that.”

Connor doesn’t have cancer. He isn’t sick. But he has been forced to live with uncertainty every day since he first hurt his foot.

At least that’s what Chris thinks may have happened (she thinks Connor hurt it playing football).

Connor has had to give up baseball, wrestling, and, for the most part, anything that involves using his left leg.

It’s tough going, mentally and psychologically, for a boy who thrived in sports, and whose older brothers play sports in high school.

That’s what people don’t see.

So don’t say Connor Cummings isn’t tough.

“I think that was one of the hardest things this summer,” said Chris. “We signed him up (for Little League) because we didn’t know and he said, ‘… If I don’t play, I’m going to every game.'”

And he didn’t play.

This young man – boy – whose favorite player is Neil Walker and favorite team is the Pittsburgh Pirates didn’t get to do the thing he loves the most.

He once had seven RBI in a game at the field he lives right down the street from, and now he’s forced to look out the window at that field every time they drive by.

It has to be excruciating.

“He couldn’t get a spike on his foot to be able to run,” said Chris. “He had no movement.”

No matter what he’s told by the multitude of doctors and foot specialists, radiologists and orthopedic surgeons, he has seen – all the way to Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital where he actually had surgery – Connor has a goal of playing Little League baseball next spring.

That’s the short-term plan.

“He’s in physical therapy right now,” said Chris. “They’ve said if he has this tarsal fusion when his growth plate is closed in three years or four years… they think that’s going to take care of the problem.

“His whole muscle right now is completely atrophied,” she said. “He can move it up and down a little right now – a few months ago he couldn’t do that; he could wiggle his toes and that was it. Also a doctor is making a custom leg brace to leave his left foot exposed.”

For over a year, when his parents bought him a new pair of sneakers, he has only been able to wear the right one.

“$80 for one sneaker,” she said.

“Now he’s going to get a new (custom) brace and he’ll actually be able to get a regular shoe on,” she said. “So what it’s going to do is give him more (flexibility through physical therapy and using that foot more and more). We’re going to start hitting physical therapy hard, and see if we get more (movement).”

Also, even more short term, Connor had wire leads placed in his spinal column that sent electrical stimulation to his foot. A permanent spinal cord stimulator will be placed soon.

The procedure was a trial for the immediate future. Imagine the heat-vibration machine you might have placed on your back at a chiropractor’s office. Well, Connor has that inside his body and up his spine.

It helps ease his constant, constant pain.

“Like a stabbing (sensation),” said Connor. “It was like a sharp stabbing pain (all the time). It was always worse at night.”

“There’s just so much to this, but long story short, they did some bloodwork and everything came back good, but his strep level came back high and they thought a strep infection had settled into his joint,” said Chris. “Antibiotics didn’t do anything for him. Then we went to Shriners Hospital. The very first day, they put him in a cast.

“I’d say the last two years he’s had pain every day,” said Chris. “The problem is not really in his ankle, it’s in his tarsal joint, which controls back and forth motion. He was in a cast for a few months. He’s been in something continuously for the last… I can’t remember.”

Doctors were saying no cast, others were saying cast.

“Nobody knew at that point.,” she said. “Normally kids would respond to the treatment, but he was not responding to any of the treatments, Anything conservative, he was not responding. Ankle joint cartilage turns to bone around (age) 10… They thought when that happened, the joint fused together. They went into the tarsal joint and they cleaned it out real well, but it just got worse. That’s when the RSD came into play.”

RSD is an older term used to describe one form of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). Both RSD and CRPS are chronic conditions characterized by severe burning pain, most often affecting one of the extremities (arms, legs, hands, or feet). There are often pathological changes in bone and skin, excessive sweating, tissue swelling and extreme sensitivity to touch, known as allodynia.

“The doctors keep saying once in a couple of decades you see a case like this,” said Chris.

At this point the Cummings aren’t sure if the tarsal joint fusion they have been told will fix the problem, or help it, will actually… well… fix it. In the meantime, they have a little boy that wants to be a little boy.

“Honestly, he still rides his bike… he still plays Wiffle Ball in the backyard. He’ll actually run. But he knows the longer he’s on it, the worse the pain in his leg,” she said.

He’s up late nights because that’s when they pain has been the worst.

Physical therapy helps.

But the fact he’s one of the toughest kids around helps more.

He has found other things to occupy his mind.

Case in point:

“He missed almost like 55 days of school last year, but be proud of that because he had all A’s and B’s,” said Chris. “He made it up and turned it in, and was an Honor Roll student.”

And he’s ready to pick up where he left off.

As a Little League All-Star.

He just needs a little luck.

The electric stimulator implant should help, but this active boy doesn’t need a whole lot of stimulation.

“When they made him Hero of the Month at Shriners he was on Cloud 9 for two months,” said Chris.

“Watching your child go through this, watching them live in chronic pain at such a young age, is extremely difficult,” she said. “He’s taught me a lot about resilience. I used to be overly cautious about letting him do certain things because I knew he would suffer later that night. I knew it meant being up until 2 or 3 a.m., trying to get him out of pain so he could fall asleep. It is literally every single night the past two years that he is a lot of pain from being on his leg all day. But he hasn’t let it define him, so I learned I cant let it define him either. He’s taught us what it means to have faith and hope in the midst of a struggle. His last surgery he found out 20 minutes before going into the operating room that he would have to be awake during the surgery when they went into his spinal cord. And he displayed so much courage and strength. More than I could have. His dad and I, and his brothers, are proud of him for continuing to fight, despite the pain, despite not being able to play the team sports he loves so much right now. But we have hope. I know he will be back on the baseball field again with his friends, and he’s determined to make it happen.”