It has been more than 20 years since a little boy named Cody McCasland inspired North Texas with his courage and determination. He was 18 months old when NBC 5 first met him in Dallas, getting his first pair of prosthetics at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. “He’s really a go-get ter and a fighter, and I think that’s gonna get him far in life,” his mother, Tina Dean, said at the time. Today, Cody is 24, and that prediction has come true. NBC 5 recently caught up with him at his family’s home in Keller while he was on a break from medical school. Cody officially changed his last name to Dean in honor of his stepfather. He is now on track to become a doctor. “I’ve always been asked for years and years, if you could go back and keep your legs, would you want to keep them? And, I’ve thought about this a lot,” Cody said. “And I’m really happy that they chose to amputate my legs because it’s given me so many opportunities to be able to walk, to be able to run, do anything that I want.” The smile and optimism viewers first saw in 2004 remain. “I’m still here. I’m still positive. I’m still working my way through it, and one day, I’ll be a pediatric anesthesiologist,” he said. Cody was born with sacral agenesis, a rare birth defect affecting the lower spine. He was born without knees or shinbones. Doctors presented his parents with two options: life in a wheelchair or amputation of his legs through the knee, offering the possibility of using prosthetics. His parents chose amputation. “I can remember being in the room and them telling me that, and I was alone. It was just Cody and I at that appointment. And there was a lot of tears. A lot of tears. I’m not going to lie,” Tina Dean said. “Being in a wheelchair is not a bad thing, but I had the choice of (him) being in a wheelchair with legs that were non-functional and always going to be in his way, and I think limit his possibilities versus amputating his legs, having the possibility of doing more, and if it didn’t work, then he’d be in the wheelchair and the legs wouldn’t be in the way. In my mind, it was an easy choice in looking back.” Cody received his first prosthetics at 18 months and has remained active ever since. He has swum, run and skied. He competed for a spot on Team USA in the 2016 Paralympic Games and swam at Austin College, where he became the first para-athlete inducted into the school’s Hall of Honor. Before graduating in 2024, he founded a disability advocacy group called CHAMPS. “We would go and walk around the campus and talk about different issues with uneven sidewalks or this building needs to have a push button to open up the doors,” he said. He also became a motivational speaker after spending time with soldiers who lost limbs in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. “I think the message that I have with my speech is that you can do anything you want to do as long as you put your mind towards it. And it might just look a little bit different for each person, but you can do it as long as you’re willing to work on it,” he said. Cody is now a second-year medical student at Sam Houston State University and is on track to graduate in May 2028. “Being a doctor was always my lifelong dream as well. Since I was three years old and I could say the words pediatric anesthesiologist, I knew that’s what I wanted to be,” he said. That goal brings his journey full circle. Cody has undergone 35 major surgeries. Pediatric anesthesiologist Dr. Amy Hogge has been present for each one. “The way that she just took care of me inspired me to want to go into medicine and take care of kids because I know what it’s like to be that little scared kid on the operating table and to be able to say, ‘It’s okay. I’m going to be here with you, and I’m going to take care of you,'” he said. Tina Dean said watching her son’s growth has been remarkable. “It’s pretty amazing to watch the transformation of how Cody has gone from being a young child who was inspiring wounded warriors, and then over the years, the different speaking events he’s done, his motivational speaking engagements, to where he is now, and just how he articulates things so differently, so eloquently,” she said. “His heart seems to be the same, where he just wants to help others and share a message of positivity, but the way he does it now has such a different impact behind it because of the life he’s lived.” This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. ...read more read less