[Stardust]

http://www.highschoolsports.net/sports/p...50684660/1

LIVONIA, Mich. - DeJuan Smith literally knows what the football terms "fourth-and-inches" and "fourth-and-long" mean.


Senior linebacker DeJuan Smith is hoping to still have an impact for Clarenceville this season.

The 5-6, 176-pound senior linebacker from Clarenceville (Livonia) got his first dose in the game of hard knocks when he went through rounds of chemotherapy after it was discovered he had tumors in his neck.

Three trips a week to Children's Hospital in Detroit were the norm for six months in 2006. The first diagnosis was something between leukemia and lymphoma. Later, he was told he had Stage IV cancer.

"I had my first dose of chemo on my 13th birthday," said Smith, who also missed Clarenceville's first four games this season with a hairline fracture of his foot, but has since returned to the starting lineup. "I couldn't go to school for a whole year. I would go at seven in the morning and be there until eight at night, then go and rest and do it all over again. It drained my body. It was the worst six months of my life."

Searching for a definitive diagnosis, Smith had been checked out at four different hospitals, seeing pediatricians, specialists and oncologists. Countless trips were made to Children's, Beaumont and Henry Ford hospitals before landing in April 2007 at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Md.

A second diagnosis categorized it as a rare form of cancer. After several trips back-and-forth, NIH provided DeJuan and his family a road map for treatment.

"The chief oncologist in Bethesda said it was only his second patient as a child," said DeJuan's mother, Kim Whittaker. "The University of Michigan (Hospital) treated it, but always for geriatric patients. We thought he'd need radiation, but DeJuan said he'd rather die than undergo chemo. He was at the breaking point. He did not want to listen to his doctors."

Working with the doctors at NIH, Smith and his family agreed to take a holistic medication approach in which he took herbs, B12 folic acids and multi-vitamins (including three pills and two drops added to either his water, ginger ale or juice), while monitoring his diet.

"We were surprised and shocked the lymph nodes were shrinking in size," Whittaker said. "We did it for a year and everything worked. We put our faith in God."

In 2009, Smith appeared to be in the clear. And in the fall of 2010, he returned to the Trojans' football team (Smith came to Clarenceville after transferring as a freshman from Southfield Bradford Academy.)

Preparing for track season and lifting weights last January, some of the original symptoms returned and his enzyme levels had been elevated. More blood work and tests were done.

Then, just prior to spring break, Smith suffered another alarming episode.

Was it a relapse?

"I came home from track practice and I was feeling fine, it was 7 o'clock at night and I was getting stomach cramps, I'm not feeling good, I'm throwing up," Smith said. "It was five in the morning, and that's usually when my dad wakes up to go to work and I'm sleeping in the basement. He checked me and I thought I just had some stomach virus. Maybe I ate something bad and I thought I'd be OK.

"I went back to bed thinking it was going to go all away. I get up and I'm sweating profusely, go to the top of stairs and tell my mom how I'm feeling, and then from that point, everything goes blank. I don't remember anything that happened beyond that point."

Whittaker feared the worst. It was April Fool's Day, but it was no joke. Something was serious.

"DeJuan walked up the stairs and said, 'I feel like my body is shutting down,"' she said. "He looked pale, and just hit the floor. I said, 'Oh, my God.' I was struggling to get him into bed. I didn't call 911, I called his doctors because he still had a pulse, he was still breathing. He was just shaking and breaking out in sweats. He was in so much pain, he said, 'Mommy, I love you,' and I got scared. I thought was my child going to die? I was on the phone with the doctors and they said, 'I want to bring you straight to Beaumont.' My husband didn't go to work that day. He had just returned from taking my daughter to school. We got him in the car and we drove him straight to Beaumont (April 1, the day before spring break). They started him on IVs, they started him on medication. He ended up his whole spring break in the hospital."

More tests were performed.

"They treated him for everything you could name they thought maybe this kid had the flu he lost consciousness for one they were concerned he had a seizure," Whittaker said. "On Sunday (April 3), he woke up and said, 'How did I get to the hospital, what happened?' He had no recall. They kept him in there and did a lot of tests to make sure there was no type of brain damage. They gave us a for-sure diagnosis. The only thing they told us was, now is the time we need to do another biopsy. That was always one of the things they always suggested, but with DeJuan being of age, and this being his body, which he had been through since 2007, said, 'Whatever happens, I'm refusing chemo, I don't want a blood transfusion. There's nothing wrong. Let me die loving what I want to do, and that's playing football.'"

Smith's physical activity was restricted and another procedure was done in mid-June at Henry Ford in West Bloomfield, which left Smith wondering if he'd ever play football again.

Smith was wheeled into the Tim Shaw summer football camp and was named an honorary captain.

"I was in a wheelchair, I lost all faith," Smith said. "I was very stressed out and took out my anger on everybody. I felt like it was me against the world. I allowed them to do the biopsy on my leg, which they took out chunk of a muscle in my left inner thigh, which kept me from walking. I couldn't walk for at least three weeks."

Smith, however, made a swift recovery and was able to join his Clarenceville teammates in early August for preseason practice.

Despite the foot injury, which kept him out the first four games, Clarenceville coach Ken Fry continues to admire Smith's relentless spirit.

"He's a pretty sharp kid, he's close to a 3.0 GPA," Fry said. "He's been blessed by somebody, that's for sure. He's done everything that has been possibly asked of him and more. It's been pretty tough to try and hold him back, because being that is his senior year, he really wants to play. You can tell, he's doing anything he possibly can both medically and physically to be able to play. If he can do that at this point, it gives a little bit extra try for the other players."

Smith returned to Clarenceville's lineup Sept. 27 in a 27-20 loss at Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard and played in last week's 13-7 loss to Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes.

"It's my senior year and I really have to make up for lost time," he said. "I'd said there's always a light at the end of the tunnel. You can make it past any adversity. When doctors told me there was possibly there was no way I'd play again, I didn't believe it and I kept fighting. If it wasn't for football, I don't think I'd be sitting here talking to you right now because the only thing that kept me going and willing take all the medicine and all the procedures that the doctors put me through was football. And I think if it wasn't for football, I wouldn't be sitting here today."

So what is the short-term or long-term prognosis for Smith?

"He's good, we're still waiting for results," Whittaker said. "They gave us a 90-day window period. The results we did get from the biopsy we were happy to say was not cancer. The cancer did not return. So, we're happy with that. There's some type of enzyme deficiency, which we've been told could be lupus. Since then he's seen his pediatrician, he's seen his doctors, the results are somewhere in New York at some type of biochemistry lab. So they're doing everything they can to make sure that he's not misdiagnosed again, and whatever they come up with if there's anything because we're pretty confident there's nothing because no one would ever know (now) there's anything wrong with this kid."

For the compact linebacker, it's now third-and-short. The first-down marker is close and the chains appear to be moving.

"It felt good," Smith said of his first game back. "My foot felt good, I was not tired. Made a lot of tackles, too."

[McCameraMan]

This is awesome