9/6 – Dallas

We were introduced to Dallas’ family when we moved to Knoxville since they live just a few miles from us. As we have learned, childhood cancer isn’t as rare as people think so having a kid just a few miles away with his own journey didn’t surprise us. What is surprising is how we just barely missed meeting each other when we were all first starting out. At birth, it was obvious that Dallas had health issues, it was just a matter of finding a medical team willing to put a diagnosis on a newborn. Their family has travelled from East Tennessee Children’s to Cincinnati Children’s to Johns Hopkins to Boston to Columbia University in NYC to Chicago (Lurie’s Children’s and Comer Children’s) and finally to Vanderbilt looking for answers. The crazy thing is that Dallas was on A7 (neuro floor) at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital the week before Tillery was admitted to A7 after having been diagnosed with a large brain tumor in Chattanooga, TN. Instead of meeting in the hospital halls then, we had to wait another 2 years to finally meet!

Dallas has a long list of rare diseases, symptoms, and struggles that includes: opsoclunus myoclonus syndrome, neuroblastoma, celiac disease, Addison’s disease, immune deficiency, congenital heart defect, Ebstein’s Anomaly, and a small frontal lobe brain mass.

Today, Dallas is still undergoing treatments which include high dose steroid injections daily, IVIG infusions every 3 weeks, Plasmapheresis every 3 months, varying chemo agents in intervals and multiple daily oral meds but he’s also doing some normal kid things too. This Fall, Dallas started school at Fort Sanders School, the same school that Tillery attends. These kids that barely missed meeting 3 years ago, now see each other daily in the cafeteria and playground. Superheroes gotta stick together!

Follow Dallas’ story on Facebook at Diagnosing Dallas. https://www.facebook.com/groups/diagnosingdallas/

#diagnosingdallas #tilleryisloved #TILfoundation #alexsmillionmile #GoGold2017

To support childhood cancer research in honor of kids like Dallas, make a donation to our team (TIL Foundation) with Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. https://www.alexslemonade.org/mypage/1314958