Tabitha Smith fights leukemia with smiles, the support of family

BY JOANIE MORRIS
SALISBURY POST

You don’t see what’s on the inside. The disease. The pain. Fred.

Well, you don’t see Fred unless the little blonde has her shirt off. Fred is Tabitha Smith’s central line. It is attached to a needle that runs into her chest, administering any intravenous medicine she needs to take.

Tabitha, 3, has leukemia and to make the disease easier to bear, she has named the things that are going to be with her longest. Fred is her central line. The silver pole that holds up her IV’s is Alice. The mask that Tabitha sometimes wore in the hospital was Nancy.

“It’s just a way to make it fun,” said her mom.

But, Tabitha had to leave Alice and Nancy at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center when she came home Wednesday.

That’s right — just over one week after her initial diagnosis, Tabitha Smith has come home. She’s doing a lot better too, according to the doctors and her parents, Tracy and Patrick Smith.

Tabitha will be home for a week, and then she will go back in the hospital for what is predicted to be three days for more chemotherapy. That’s better than the original four weeks that Tracy and Patrick thought she was going to have to spend in the hospital.

But, they know that having their daughter home is a blessing.

“We’re not a success story yet,” said Patrick, lounging in his recliner, watching his little baby run around the living room.

When he found out that Tabitha may have leukemia, he didn’t believe it. It took three days for the words to actually sink in.

“It was going to take more than a finger prick to hear my child has leukemia,” Patrick said. Once in Winston-Salem, the doctors confirmed that she did indeed have the disease. Then, there was hope that it was the more curable kind. Then, that hope was dispelled, as well.

“It was just a bombshell of bad news,” Patrick said.

“Every day we have like this is just a little treasure for us,” Tracy added, settling in at Patrick’s feet.

They have to keep a bag packed while Tabitha is home, just in case they need to make a quick getaway to the hospital. They both hope they don’t have to use it.

“Looking at her, you wouldn’t even know she was sick,” said Tracy. Tabitha weighed about 25 pounds when they took her to the hospital. After all the chemotherapy, she came home weighing 24 pounds.

“I take my medicine,” Tabitha said proudly to her nurse, Chandra Fink, a Rowan Regional Home Health and Hospice nurse. Tabitha is taking three different antibiotics right now, and taking them like a big girl.

Normally, she hates medicine. But, she knows that this medicine is going to help her get better and kill the “germs” in her body.

Fink dutifully explained all of the things that Home Health would be doing and then went to work on her little patient.

“Medicine’s gonna make it feel better,” Tabitha said while Fink worked.

Fink measured her height, her head, and even let Tabitha help.

“Eww, yuck,” Tabitha said when Fink got out the needles.

“Let’s feed Fred,”Fink said. Tabitha was all for feeding Fred, but she didn’t want another needle put in her. She helped the nurse by holding Fred by his “tail” and letting the nurse put the needle in.

“She does so well with everything,”Tracy said. That goes with getting sick, too.

“It usually takes us four or five trips to the doctor to nail it because she looks so good,”Patrick said.

“Even now, as sick as she is, she looks so good,”Tracy added.

Patrick listened to his wife speak, knowing that they were going to get through the fight together.

“We know that could change and we are very grateful for what we have,” Patrick said, finishing his wife’s sentence for her.

When asked what she did in the hospital, Tabitha didn’t hesitate: “Played.”

“She was jumping on the bed and dancing” with the nurses and interns, her mom said.

When they found out that Tabitha was going to be released, Tracy and Patrick were ecstatic.

“Being home is important,” Tracy said.

“We were walking down the hall (at the hospital) and the doctors came up to us and told us they wanted to talk about a plan,”she added.

She thought that they already had a plan, to help Tabitha get better. She thought that they were going to be there for four weeks. She thought a lot of things.

What she didn’t think was that they were going to tell them that Tabitha would be free to go home.

“She’s done exceptionally well ... I can’t believe she got to go home,”Tracy said.

Patrick said that he asked the doctors if Tabitha’s progress was normal and they all said no.

“She’s not a normal child,” Patrick added.

Normal or not, Tabitha is doing much better.

“God is so good to us,” Tracy said, fighting back tears. She knows that if Tabitha sees them, she’s just going to tell her to suck it up. That’s what she did to her daddy in the hospital.

Patrick said that right after she went into the hospital, he was lying at the bottom of her bed crying when she woke up.

“My daughter’s looking down and saying ‘Suck it up dad,’ ” Patrick joked.

“It’s amazing what little ones can do for us,” Patrick said from his perch, keeping an eye on Tabitha.

Tabitha didn’t miss a beat. She is completely carefree. She knows she is sick and that the disease that she has is a bad one. But she doesn’t show any signs of stress.

“Children, when they’re young, don’t worry,”Tracy said. “Stress plays a big part in fighting something like this. ...It’s because God’s with her and she knows it. She feels his presence.”

That is Tabitha Smith’s secret to success.

She got a teddy bear from somebody while she was in the hospital. The little bear, once its paws are pressed, sings “Jesus loves me.”

It is her favorite new thing and there is a reason.

Tabitha sings the song with him. Every beat. Every word.

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Contact Joanie Morris at 704-797-4264 or jmorris@salisburypost.com .