Dr. Jay Wellons grew up in Columbia and has become a renowned pediatric neurosurgeon. He returned to Columbia Friday to the room in the Columbia-Marion County Library where he last stepped foot as a 13-year-old to do a speech for the Daughter's of the American Revolution. This time he was there for a book signing and reading from his first book, “All That Moves Us: A Pediatric Neurosurgeon, His Young Patients, and Their Stories of Grace and Resilience.”
The community room at the library was packed as more than 60 people came to see and hear Dr. Wellons and to get a copy of his first book. The majority of the audience members knew Wellons as he grew up and knew his parents, John and Lyn Wellons.
Drew Foxworth, a former classmate of Wellons, gave an introduction that included stories of their youth and their "rivalry" in tennis and academics. He spoke of how Wellons' love of reading and the library was always a part of his life. Foxworth won at tennis, but Wellons was more well read.
Wellons spoke about his childhood, his family, his career and how he came to write a book, which is not a normal path for a neurosurgeon.
He attended Columbia Academy up until his junior year when he went to a boarding school in Tennessee. He received his degree in English from the University of Mississippi and went on to medical school at the University of Mississippi Medical School. He did his residency at Duke University and is now the chief of the division of pediatric neurosurgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. He is the medical director for the Surgical Outcomes Center for Kids (SOCKS), which he co-founded. He is a professor in the departments of neurological surgery, pediatrics, plastic surgery, radiology and radiological sciences at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt.
Wellons spoke of how he would tell many stories about things that had happened in his life and in his practice. He was encouraged to write them down. He did and ended up with op-eds in The New York Times. He said the reaction and interest he received after those articles led him to feel there was a need for a book about resilience and grace.
He loved English and felt, as most English majors do, that he might write one day. But, Wellons wanted to learn about the human condition and thought he would be a small family doctor who traded goods for his services and would write along the way. He said he then got interested in neurosurgery, and here he is today.
"I had to live the experience before I could write about it," Wellons said.
Wellons talked about his family and their connection to Columbia. His parents moved here in 1968 with his older sisters, Eve Wellons of Columbia and Sara Laird Kochey of Natchez. He and his sisters just sold their family home at 507 Broad St. this year after the death of their mother in 2016. He said he comes here a few times a year to visit and to deal with his family home and possessions. He still owns a rental home on Oak Street.
His family was very involved in St. Stephens Episcopal Church here in town. His father owned Rankin Company Clothing Store as well as many Dollar General stores at one time. His father left the Air National Guard as a two-star general and received the Legion of Merit Award among others. He also served as the Director of Development at the University of Southern Mississippi for a period.
Wellons did a reading from his book. He read a chapter that was so poignant, it had most of the room in tears, including the author himself. The chapter was about Wellons' father in his last years before he died of Lou Gehrig's Disease in 1996 and about a young boy who fought to regain the use of his body after surgery.
Wellons had a way of drawing the two stories together that they seamlessly became one. Everyone could seemingly envision his father racing to get on a plane as Wellons pushed him in his wheelchair before saluting the pilot who allowed them on the flight. It was just as easy to see the young boy, having regained his ability to lift his arm, saluting Wellons as a show of respect. 
He took questions and signed books, but a great moment came when a lady in the audience raised her hand and said that her granddaughter was Chapter 8 in the book that Dr. Wellons had written. The lady's name was Sharon McAmis, and she lives in Poplarville. Her granddaughter's name is Cheyenne, and she lives in Nashville. Cheyenne had several teeth pulled and kept getting sicker afterwards. She had a seizure and lost feeling in her left side. She had an MRI, which revealed she had a brain infection. Wellons did the surgery on Cheyenne and had to do a follow up to replace a large part of her skull. He did not know until he went back in that he left two tiny rubber bands in after the last surgery.
In the chapter, he talks about how he debated how to tell the mother what he had done. When he did tell her, she told him that he had saved her daughter's life and she did not care if he left his car keys in there.
McAmis said that is why it is a story of grace and forgiveness. She said she was amazed when her daughter told her that Dr. Wellons would be in Columbia less than an hour away from her home. She was so happy she was able to attend and said it was a very good experience. She had tears in her eyes as she told the crowd who she was.
"It was wonderful to be here," Wellons said. "It was so wonderful to see so many people there. It made my heart swell to see so many old friends, people who knew me and who loved my parents."
Wellons now lives in Nashville with his wife, Melissa Fair Wellons, and his two children, Jack, 17, and Stella Fair, 13.
