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 Kyle Lograsso recently took part in a charity outing at Mile Square Golf Club in Fountain Valley. The Murrieta bedroom of Kyle Lograsso is a sports collector’s dream. Walls and shelf space are covered in photos, pennants, balls and other memorabilia signed by professional athletes. There’s a towel with signatures of the U.S. golfers who won the 2008 Ryder Cup; a baseball signed by members of the world-champion New York Yankees; and, a huge photo of Tiger Woods next to a signed letter from the 14-time major champion. It would take a lifetime for many sports enthusiasts to amass such a haul. But Kyle is only 8, which also explains the five stuffed animals arranged on his bed. The first animal Kyle picks up when a visitor notices his toys is a brown and white dog, a bit more tattered than the others. Kyle cradles the dog to his chest as his mother, Regina, explains that it’s the only stuffed animal her son sleeps with each night. “That’s the one he carried with him through his six months of chemo,” she said. “It never left his side.” On one hand, Kyle is a cancer survivor who has danced with Ellen DeGeneres, met Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, and thrown out the first pitch of a major league baseball game. On the other, he’s a golf prodigy who amazes everyone he meets with his skill and love of the game. But in his heart, mind and body, Kyle is still just a kid with all the excitement and interests of any other 8-year-old. And he’s a kid who, with the involvement of his family, hasn’t let his notoriety go to his head. That’s why when a person on a golf course tells him he’s going to be the next Tiger Woods, Kyle simply responds: “No, I’m just Kyle.” The Lograsso family was living in Japan in May 2004. It’s where Kyle’s dad, Jeff, a 10-year member of the United States Marine Corps, was stationed. One weekend, the family went to Korea for a softball tournament. Kyle, who wasn’t yet 2, and his two older sisters, Kristen and Kaley, were hanging out in the hotel room. The only English-speaking channel was the Golf Channel. When his parents returned from their game, they noticed something unusual. “Kyle was swinging the remote like it was a golf club,” Jeff said. After handing Kyle a plastic baseball bat, Kyle began swinging that like a golf club, too. Soon, he was in the hotel hallway using a set of plastic clubs that his mother found. Though his parents were athletic, neither had ever picked up a club. And, to their recollection, Kyle had never watched a golf tournament at home. A few days later, the Lograssos were at a cookout in Japan, and a friend of Jeff’s noticed Kyle swinging a stick like a golf club. “He looked at Kyle, and then he looked at me, and said, ‘You know, he’s got a perfect golf swing,’” Jeff recalled. “And this was from a guy who played golf all the time. That’s when I started thinking something was happening.” But something was happening medically, too. A few weeks before his second birthday, Regina noticed something strange in Kyle’s left eye. “It looked like a cat’s eye, but you couldn’t see it all the time,” Jeff recalled. “If he looked off in the distance and the light hit it a certain way, you could see … something.” Regina mentioned it to the doctor at Kyle’s 2-year-old checkup. Perhaps it was just a cataract, but the doctor wanted Kyle to see an ophthalmologist at the base. The family was then instructed to see a specialist in Hawaii, where they were informed that Kyle had bilateral retinoblastoma, the medical term for eye cancer. In both eyes. Within two weeks, the specks in Kyle’s eyes had gone from being barely visible to noticeable. A pediatrician thought chemotherapy could save the eyes, and Kyle was put through a battery of scary and grueling tests. But an oncologist thought the cancer was more serious, and he suggested the family contact Dr. Carol Shields at the Wills Eye Institute in Philadelphia, Penn. |
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