The Daily Egyptian is published by the students of SIU at Carbondale. Except during vacations and exam weeks, The Daily Egyptian is published Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and TWThF during the summer semester."

Two weeks of turmoil

It was one day before SIU head coach Chris Lowery was scheduled to make his head-coaching debut, but both his mind and body were far from the SIU Arena.

While the assistant coaches and players prepared for Missouri Southern in Carbondale, Lowery was at St. Louis Children's Hospital - watching his three-year-old son fight for his life and beginning two of the longest weeks of his own life.

Lowery's youngest son, Kahari, was undergoing brain surgery that day. This is not an unusual thing - Kahari, who has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and suffers from other health problems - has been through 14 of them in his young life. Lowery's father-in-law calls Kahari the million-dollar baby due to the length of time he has spent in the hospital, including the first four months of his life.

"He's the toughest little guy I've ever come across," Lowery said.

But this surgery, in particular, was dangerous. Dr. Tae Sung Park, one of the best pediatric neurosurgeons in the world, is replacing a shunt in Kahari's brain. A shunt is a passage between two body channels, and this one connects his head to his heart.

Meanwhile, in Carbondale, everything is going fine. Rodney Watson and the other assistants know what to do, and practice goes as scheduled.

"We all run it - we all know what we're doing," Watson said. "We all know the system. We just pick up and go."

Lowery wanted to be there. Even though everyone knows what they are doing at practice, the new head coach believes it's important for the top Dawg to be around, especially the day before a game.

Lowery had been driving back and forth from St. Louis all week, but he could not make the commute this time. He had no clue what was going to happen.

As the day progressed, the surgery went as planned and Kahari now appeared to be fine. As far as Lowery knows, there are no scheduled surgeries in the near future.

"At this point, we hope not," Lowery said. "We hope we can keep him out of the hospital and keep him out of emergency rooms for a while."

Of course, this does not mean Lowery was able to take it easy, something that has become a theme for him since he accepted the head-coaching job in April.

"That whole week I was just out of it," he said of when his son was in the hospital. "The past two weeks have just been a blur."

That' s because his action-packed week did not end there.

Lowery had a game the next day, but he also had hours of work - and plenty of sleep to lose - helping his family before he donned his suit and hit the court.

His wife, Erika, was pregnant with the couples' fourth child and was on bed rest. That leaves Lowery, as the household's only adult, with a whole heap of responsibilities.

Sundays are a bit easier than most days, but the real insanity begins with the school week. Lowery is up at 5:30 a.m. every day, making sure his children do everything they are supposed to do. He rarely sleeps more than four to five hours a night.

"I have to make sure everybody has breakfast, make sure everybody has clothes, make sure everybody put soap and water on their body," Lowery said.

Once the crew is situated, Lowery takes them all to school. That also includes an everyday trip to Murphysboro, where one of his children attends a special needs school.

Once that is taken care of, he attempts to eat breakfast with his wife and spend a little time with her.

But he is not paid $180,000 a year for nothing, so after no more than an hour, he is off to the SIU Arena.

He does recruiting work, among other things, when he gets there. Because he insists on a hands-on approach, recruiting takes up a significant chunk of his time and is made difficult due to his family situation.

Lowery is always a phone call away should disaster strike and always makes sure to buy open-ended airline tickets when he travels, in case something should arise regarding Kahari or the rest of his family.

When not taking care of the odds and ends of coaching, Lowery prepares for the team's practice - something that has become a form of therapy for him the last few weeks.

Lowery said he is in a zone when he is in practice, something the players have begun to notice.

The subject of Lowery's son and family situation never comes up at practice, and the head coach is careful to make everything seem normal.

"He hasn't said much to us about it," said guard Darren Brooks, who is in his fifth season of Saluki basketball and has been coached by Lowery for four of those years. "I guess he keeps his personal life kind of private, and we can respect that."

Brooks said Lowery really seems to look happy when he's running practice, and it doesn't seem to matter how tired he is or what is going on in his personal life.

Part of that is because Lowery intentionally hides his personal life from the players. As the coach, Lowery said he needs to constantly show his players that he is 100 percent focused on basketball.

"If they're going to trust me, I can't ever show them that I'm worried," Lowery said. "I can't ever show them that I'm not sure about anything."

But the players do tend to notice when he's not there. Lowery missed practice one week ago, but the occasion was a happy one.

To cap off two of the most tumultuous weeks of his life, Lowery and his wife welcomed Jazmyn to the world. She may end up growing up with assistant coach Shane Hawkins' kid, who was born the next day.

Much to the Loweries' relief, the newborn baby girl has been a model of health through the first week of her life.

"She's been great. Everything's normal," Lowery said. "She's at home, pooping up diapers, crying, keeping me up at night."

Jazmyn may be yet another person for Lowery to worry about, but she is healthy, and life at the Lowery household is going well.

Unfortunately, since Kahari is "a touch and go situation," the cycle of the last two weeks could return once again without warning.

But Lowery has been through plenty and is confident that with a little help from God, he can handle whatever is thrown his way in the future.

"We have strong faith," Lowery said about his family. "Without that, we wouldn't be able to get through all the things that have happened to us."