Dustin's Story

Our little boy Dustin Wade Smith was diagnosed with a rare form of childhood cancer in June 2004 called Rhadomyosarcoma. This solid Tumor was located behind his Right eye in the orbit. Thanks to the Lord It was localized only to the orbits. This website was set up to allow family and friends to follow Dustin's progress and keep us all in there prayers. There was a time we did not know what the future held for our little boy. After 47 weeks of chemotherapy, 28 days of radiation at St Judes Hopital, Surgery to remove the bulk of the tumor, surgery to check out spots on lungs half way through treatment, eyelid sling placement to reopen damaged eyelid from original tumor removal and finally the port removal.... We can now say Dustin is cancer free and doing awsome! I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to those of you who continued to lift Dustin and our family up in prayer. The Lord has showed us so much on our Journey with childhood cancer. We will forever be changed by the things we went through and the people we have met along the way. Please check back often to see updates letting you know how Dustin is doing.

Journal

Sunday, December 7, 2008 7:10 PM CST

Yes we are all still here and doing great. I can't believe it has been 5 months since my last update! Time is going by so fast this school year. Dustin is doing great. Last time I had posted Dustin had went to Don Imus Ranch.. That was a interesting experience. He had a ok time. Not something he would really want to go back to.

Dustin has been back to St Judes since my last update and all is very good. He had full body scans and everything looks great. He is defenitly loosing semetry on his frontal Bones of his face. The right side appears flater then the left due to growth. St Judes will watch him close and determine at what point Dustin can have some reconstuctive surgery. They will go in a add tissue to make the brow bone appear even to the other side, along with the bones under his eye. Our Dr's scheduled us to come back in August. This will be our longest stretch between visits.

Dustin is doing really well except for some weird unknown rash that appeared all over his body including his face. His cheeks swelled up and he was miserably itching. So we spent 3 days back and forth to the Dr making sure he was treated to get rid of this rash. Steroids seemed to do the trick. We never got a firm answer as to why the rash was so bad.

Dustin still begs to play soccer regularly. This is one thing that Dustin really enjoys.... Soccer Soccer Soccer! He has really increased his skills this last year with the traveling team and we just love watching him play!

The girls are doing wonderful... They are in Brownies and are having lots of fun.

Ben and I are transitioning in our Business. We were finally approved for the SBA loan that we fought long and hard for for over a 1 1/2. Our Business will hopefully grow. We are expanding our Tree service to provide the community with colored mulch that is less expensive than like Home Depot or Lowes and it is a better quality! We were making mulch all day today with the family... LETS GO MULCH!

Well life is moving forward and our lives are always full. No time to do much of anything other than kids and Business. One day we hope it will all pay off for us! God has been good and we know he will continue to pour goodness on our lives.

Bye for now. Check out the new pics! Love Shawna

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E-mail Author: sapah76@hotmail.com

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