Stand with Dylan and His Loving Family

Please give if you can but prayers are appreciated just as much!

From Kenny and Kim Smith:

How did we get here? A question we have asked ourselves a thousand times. This past year, we had made it past Christmas and had big plans for the upcoming year of 2025. This winter we had so many plans of getting our garden ready for the spring and so many other things we wanted to do to the house, but life had other plans and I do mean BIG plans. On December 27th, I went to work early as I usually do, and Kim was still on Christmas break. Dylan dropped Eevee and Violet off at Kim so he could go to work. He had been complaining about his back for several days, and after getting to work, his legs gave out, and we told him to go to the emergency room, and Kim would get ready and come up there. After several tests, it was confirmed that our son had cancer. He called Kim as she was trying to get there and gave her the news, then he called me as I was passing the Galleria, headed back to Sylacauga. He didn’t want to give the news over the phone, but I insisted he tell me, and from that moment on, I don’t remember the drive back to my work to get in my pickup and from there to the hospital. Our world just changed, the plans we had for the winter, the material things in our life, nothing mattered but what this disease called Cancer had done to our son.

Kim made it to the hospital, and before she went into Dylan’s room, she was notified that it was bad. She’s a mommy through and through, and her family is what makes her world go around. While in with Dylan, she would keep up with how close I was getting. When I made it to the hospital and entered my sons room the hospital chart might of said 32 year old male but what I saw was a 2 year old little boy that would run and jump in his daddy’s lap every time I would get home from work and watch the Braves game while eating supper in my lap. My heart was being ripped out of my chest, as I always have done with my kids, I had to find a way to fix this. I was a broken man as I hugged my little man and cried like a baby. If a grown man crying is uncool, well, I’ve never had a cool bone in my body, so the uncool needle didn’t move much. I told him we would walk every step with him, and GOD would get us through this.

We were sent to UAB to the O’Neal Cancer Center. We were lost, our lives turned upside down, our hearts torn in a million pieces. We are a tight family, we live a quiet, simple life, we are home bodies, home is our happy place, but this has taken us so far out of our norm, and our son is very sick. After Dylan was admitted to UAB, he was wheeled into the Cancer Center, and as the automatic doors opened, the emotions set in. This is real, our son has cancer, and everyone here is suffering from this terrible disease. We felt as if we had been kicked right in the heart. I know he’s no different than anyone else in here, but he is our son, and we want this nightmare to end. We see on TV all the commercials about cancer centers and wanting donations, so you give a little and think in the back of your mind that it happens to other people. GOD has a way to get your attention by shaking you a little, well, we have been shaking and he has our attention. We cried out to him over and over again, and he gave us a peace that he was in control, but we had to have faith and give it to him.

Everywhere we turned, we would see a bible verse, and after looking it up, it would pertain to our situation, and we felt as if it was God's wink. Dylan had surgery and they started chemo, which scared us to death. He would have to stay 2 weeks in the cancer center, and Kim and I would stay the whole time. Other, I ran home on a Sunday for a few hours to check on things. While heading back to UAB and at the light in Harpersville, I had a meltdown down, but as I looked at the license plate on the car in front of me, it read “PSALM91”, that was my GOD wink, I looked it up and it gave me the comfort I needed. I was the one who was supposed to be strong, but this was more than I could handle. My family is my everything, and daddy is supposed to fix anything, but this was out of my hands; this was bigger than me. As each day went by, I would say to Kim, “How did we get here?”, a question I would keep asking. After those two weeks went by, the doctors had a plan for the cancer that had spread to several places which included four rounds of chemo. We headed home and then returned to UAB so that Dylan could have his treatments and all his lab work.

Life didn’t stop just because Dylan had cancer, he had his daughters to be a daddy to, and how in the world do you explain to two beautiful little girls that their daddy has cancer and that his body is fixing to go through some terrible changes. With his family, he has a great support system with family members willing to step in and do whatever, his sisters, who wanted nothing but Big Brother to be healed. Kim and I had responsibilities to work, but our son would come first, no matter what. Luckily, we both have jobs that have been a blessing through all this. In our eyes, nothing mattered at this season of life that we were in but having our family whole again and everyone being healthy. If the house, the cars we drive, all the material things we worked for went away, and our son was healed, then we would praise GOD, dust our knees off, and start all over again. We thank the LORD for the churches, friends, and even people we don’t know who have reached out to us in so many ways, blessing us, we truly appreciate it.

We would make many trips up to UAB, and while waiting hours for Dylan to receive his chemo, it was always the same question I would say to Kim, “how did we get here”? Each trip we watched this poison being put in our sons body while sucking the life out of him. It’s so heartbreaking seeing him being so sick, he can barely hold his head up to throw up. As Dylan’s hair started to fall out, I came home from work one day to find him in front of the gas logs trying to get warm, and as I looked at the back of his head, I could see bare spots and his scalp was showing in places. It took everything in me to tell my son it was time for daddy to shave his head, my heart was crying, my hands were shaking, and my eyes filled with water, but it was my job to do this, I said I would walk every step with him and this was one step we had to take.

Eventually, all his hair would fall out every else and all the other things that come along with chemo. Kim and I would work as much as we could between the breaks and chemo; we were exhausted, and we missed our simple little life. If I said we weren’t jealous when we saw others going on with their happy life, then I would be lying, not wishing this on anyone else but just missing life as we had it before this miserable disease. I usually go to bed early since I get up at 2:30 to go to work and Kim lays beside me usually looking at her Pinterest dreaming about how she wants her garden but now things had changed, I would wake up and look at my beautiful wife as she was now focused on whatever would heal our baby boy (yes all our babies are still babies no matter how old they get), she would be on his hospital portal checking his numbers and looking up what everything meant. We would walk through hell barefoot if it would heal Dylan, but we had to put our faith in the great physician, our Lord and savior. As the fourth round of chemo was ending and we were closer to Dylan ringing the bell, we were cautiously optimistic, we knew the scan would tell the whole story. Our tight, sometimes dysfunctional family all gathered to watch this moment we had been waiting for, the ringing of the bell, we were so happy, but our son looked like he could break in half because the poison that was killing the cancer was killing him too. No hair, a lot of pounds lighter, and weak as water, he had made it to the end of treatment and was now waiting for the scan that would be a few weeks later.

The day of the scan came, and his mom and I were as nervous as ever to get it over with. The scan was done, and we were to meet with his oncologist, whom we have loved from the get go; she has been the biggest blessing. We were called back, and as usual, she came right in and gave us the great news we had been praying for, no evidence of cancer, and he should start getting his energy along with his hair back soon. The only concern is a spot in his lung that looked to be an infection, but not sure. She put him on antibiotics and said they would scan it again in a month. We were on cloud nine and praising the Lord for what he had done. We were all exhausted and looking forward to getting back to our normal, boring life that we so much loved, and in a month, we would come back and get better news that Dylan’s lung was all clear. As we were getting the wind back in our sails and Dylan’s sweet babies were getting their daddy back to his healthy looking self, a month passed, and the day of the scan came on Thursday, May 15th.

We were excited to get this scan and dr visit behind us, the scan was done and labs were drawn, all we had to do was meet with his oncologist. As we were in the exam room, waiting time ticked by, and things were different. Dr Molly wasn’t as quick as she normally was, and time kept going by. I texted Kim, who was right next to me, while Dylan was on the exam table, and I said something must be wrong. She shook her head in agreement, and as Dr Molly entered the room, we could tell by the look on her face something was wrong. As she explained things, she began to get upset, her emotions showed, and Kim began to cry. For me, I felt my life draining from my body. I was supposed to be strong and the rock Kim and Dylan could lean on, but this rock was melting. My son's cancer was back with a vengeance. Dr Molly said she wanted to admit him that day, but he said he wanted to go home to see his babies, and she agreed; he could come on Friday the next day and check in to start a different chemo and to prepare for a bone marrow transplant. I asked myself how did we got here, how is this possible, as daddy, I got to fix this, but I know only the man upstairs can turn the impossible into the possible. Faith, it’s easy to say, but not always easy to have. We serve a merciful GOD who states he will not put on you more than you can handle. Well, I’m there, the weight is heavy, but I will believe until there’s no more life in me!

Dylan started his chemo at 1:15 am this Saturday and it’s a 24 hour chemo, then he will start a different chemo that’s not as long over the next 4 to 5 days before he will get a break and then before he gets his bone marrow transplant he will receive a high powerful chemo to wipe out all the good and bad in his body. As I write this it is close to midnight on Saturday night, my beautiful GOD filled wife is asleep in the recliner next to our grown baby boy who is in the hospital bed with a disease growing inside him that wants nothing but to take him from the ones who love him the most on this earth. GOD has the last say! He loved Dylan long before he blessed us with him and our 3 beautiful daughters. We believe and we will hold onto that belief!

Over these last several months, I’ve been the first to admit I have been an emotional wreck. I would ask whoever I ran into they please pray for my son, whether I knew them or not. I just needed everybody praying for him. I was receiving help at Publix in Sylacauga with the fountain drink machine from a lady that worked in the deli and I asked if she a praying lady, she commented back that she was so I asked when she prayed would she remember my son, she said GOD is a GOD of now and she prayed right there in front on the fountain drink machine, it meant everything to me. I know I’m selfish when asking for prayers, but we need prayers for Dylan. Thank you for all your prayers and blessings; it truly has meant the world.

Psalm 27:1. To my beautiful wife… Kim Smith, I love doing life with you! You are just as beautiful on the inside as you are on the outside! Having a GOD loving wife is a true blessing, and I’m so thankful for that! You gave birth to 4 beautiful babies, but you raised 5 children. 34 years of marriage & this is a chapter in our life that GOD knew we would bear one day, and we will take it one day at a time and love our boy through it. God bless!