Today, Andrew Bateson is a high school graduate and a drummer for the band Astrela, which he and a friend formed.

The Providence Journal / Glenn Osmundson

I turned onto College Road, as I had done so often years before, and right away it brought me back to my first visit to Andrew Bateson here on this cozy block in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Providence. He was only 8 then, in 1999, and still doing little boy things, in particular youth ice hockey, which is what brought me there. I was intrigued by how a child who had lost two legs just below the knee could have learned to skate.

Now, as I parked my car, I wondered how time could have gone so quickly. It is 10 years later, and I’d chosen to catch up because Andrew just graduated from Classical High School. “Barely,” his mother Rebecca told me by phone, half-jokingly.

I had been in this house scores of times because the short column I planned to write about Andrew proved not adequate for his story, so I spent months writing a six-part newspaper series, and then years expanding it into a book called Up and Running that came out in 2005. I was drawn in part by the medical drama. At age 6, 12 years ago this very week, Andrew began to feel ill one night with one of the most aggressive of all illnesses — bacterial meningitis. By the time he arrived at Hasbro Children’s Hospital the next morning, a catastrophic infection was blackening entire sections of his skin. At that advanced stage, the mortality rate of the disease can approach 80 percent.

A year before, Rhode Island had gone through an outbreak of meningitis, and some say Andrew survived because the Hasbro doctors had more experience confronting these cases than any team in the country. But the disease cuts off blood to the extremities, and both Andrew’s legs had to be amputated.

It made walking, even with prosthetics, almost impossible. Another child might have focused on non-athletic pursuits. Within a year, Andrew said he wanted to Rollerblade, and while his mother wept at the window here on College Street, thinking it was impossible, her son spent a whole summer holding onto his front yard’s white picket fence, pushing off and falling for hours a day and then weeks until he did indeed learn. Then he learned ice hockey, one of the most difficult of sports, and played so well his youth team did not know he was a double amputee until he got a special award for it at the banquet after season’s end. When it was announced, several boys on that year’s championship squad approached Andrew and gave him their victory pins.

In time, he went on to Classical High, where he focused, beyond the classroom, on BMX ramp-biking at skate parks. Then he moved on to a new pursuit that is now at the center of his life, and I was able pick up on it even before I walked through the door of his home.

I suppose you would describe the style of Andrew Bateson’s band, Astrela, as heavy metal, only more so. I followed the sound to a room on the second floor of his home where he and four others were practicing. You would think, given his handicap, that Andrew might have chosen guitar, but instead, he sat behind a professional drum set, where he worked a double pedal with his prosthetic feet.

I sat down to listen. The singing is a form of screaming, which is a common hardcore genre. It is not the preferred style of Andrew’s parents, Rebecca and Scott, but neither did they like Andrew jumping off ramps on a bicycle. They have long since realized it is the nature of their son to seize life through extreme pursuits, rather than dwell on losses, and they believe it’s another reason he survived his disease.

For many years, Andrew went through surgeries to correct problems with his legs. That’s likely over now, but he still has challenges because the meningitis affected his growth plates in a way that has kept his upper legs from growing to their natural length. As result, his prosthetics below the knee are today made longer to give him what would have been his proper height of around five-feet-ten. It would be possible to adjust down a bit, but Andrew seems to like the way his current height makes him a half-inch taller than his father.

Astrela does well for a high school band, having played to hardcore fans at venues like The Living Room, Blaze Billiards in Warwick, the Blue Building and Club Hell, often on showcase nights that feature many bands.

Andrew’s mom, rolling her eyes a bit, said the band even has some female groupies. It reminded me of the time she told me of an 8-year-old girl across the street who seemed to have a crush on her son. She didn’t like girls coming after Andrew then, and still doesn’t seem to today.

I sat down in the small upstairs room with the band. The other members include Louis Matraccia and Bill Guglietta, both 16-year-olds who go to North Providence High. Dave Coletta, 18, plays bass and will be going to Johnson & Wales. Nick Bagley, 17, lead singer, goes to Johnston High. Andrew met him a few years ago while biking at a skate park. Together, they formed the band. In amusing contrast to their music, they all had quiet personalities, at least around me. They went into their next song. Andrew was hitting the drums so hard he perspired. It may well have been the loudest sound I had ever been exposed to. I watched Andrew’s legs working the double-pedal for the two floor drums as his hands kept up with eight other surfaces — toms, a snare, a crash, a hi-hat and more. It struck me that at this level, drumming is as much sport as it is music, and it made me think that Andrew has found his way to pursue his love of athletics after all.

I went to the living-dining room to sit with Rebecca. Nearby, there was an empty wheelchair. Andrew uses it in the morning before he puts his prosthetics on and at day’s end when his legs are tired.

Rebecca is now the office manager at the Brain and Spine Neuro-Surgical Institute, a group of surgeons. Scott still works as a technician at Dryvit, a building products company. Nearby, their young daughter Abigail climbed into the wheel chair and pushed herself around in it. Abby is 7, but Rebecca says she and Andrew act like they are two years apart, arguing over things they both want. Andrew’s big sister, Erin, is at CCRI and Andrew plans to go there himself next September. He isn’t sure what he wants to study yet.

He will admit he is still an antsy boy who doesn’t easily sit in a classroom. But he also understands that were he not in school, he would lose the family’s health-care coverage.His prosthetic legs, which have to be replaced every year or so, cost $14,000.

Andrew is still occasionally singled out for how much he has overcome. The singer Celine Dion runs a Canadian foundation called “Faces of Hope” that last year chose Andrew as one of 12 “miracle children” from around the world with near-impossible survival stories.

Today, you can still see deep scars on parts of Andrew’s skin from the meningitis — the bacteria virtually “burns” tissues, both outside and in. Andrew seems unaware of those scars, and when asked whether they are a reminder of how close he came to dying, he shrugs.

“He doesn’t see himself as being different,” said Rebecca, “or fragile in any way.”

Rebecca will sometimes wince at her son’s music, but she is relieved it’s now drums instead of a BMX bike.

“This is safer,” she said.

Andrew joined us with his band-mate and close friend, Nick Bagley. I asked Rebecca how she felt about Andrew’s long hair.

She smiled and said: “You pick your battles.”

She is less enamored with his nose ring and “snake bites” — small piercings below his lower lip.

“He’s ruining his beautiful face,” Rebecca joked.

“It’s a fashion thing,” said Andrew.

Rebecca assured her son he would grow out of it.

He smiled. “We’ll see,” he said.

Then she added: “There are no drug issues, or alcohol issues. We’ve been blessed.”

I asked Andrew whether his disability is ever an issue for him.

“Not really,” he said. “It’s just how I go through the day. Some people wake up in the morning and eat breakfast, I put on my legs.”

He’s not shy about explaining his situation when people ask, but doesn’t go into depth for reasons of modesty.

“Then you get the whole, ‘I feel so bad for you,’ ” said Andrew. “I don’t want that because I don’t feel bad for myself.”

His summer plans are to try to get a job and play his music — he practices up to four hours a day. He hopes to make a living as a drummer, but realizes he needs other options, and will explore them at CCRI.

The conversation turned to girls. Andrew is not with one at the moment and is fine with that. He said it can be stressful to always have to call a girlfriend, and not understand the various reasons they get upset.

Nick Bagley said Andrew is the comedian of the band, for example joking that he can’t play because his feet are cold.

“You can be in the worst mood and he makes you laugh,” said Nick.

He added that Andrew’s prosthetics don’t hold him back as a drummer.

“Sometimes I forget he doesn’t have legs,” said Nick.

Does Nick ever feel Andrew got dealt a bad hand?

“I’d say it’s almost a gift,” he said.

For a moment, everyone at the table took that in.

“Honestly,” said Nick, “not even joking around — I think he’ll make it more than any one of us. I’ve seen him get better and better and better. He’s just determined.”

Andrew shrugged.

Then the band friends turned to talking about where they would hang out that night. They were done with the interview.

I thanked them and stood to leave.

Even after I wrote the book about Andrew being a triumph of spirit, a part of me wondered what might happen to his outlook over time

This visit showed me the answer.

I headed out of College Road, realizing Andrew Bateson is still the same boy.

mpatinkin@projo.com