Dillyn's battle
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on December 5, 2014 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Dillyn Hamilton, 2, rests in his mother's arms. The boy is fighting childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and Heroes Sport Oyster Bar and Grill will host a fundraiser Sunday at noon for the family.
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Dillyn plays in his ball pit at home the day after his latest treatment.
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Submitted photo
Dillyn and his mother, Suzy, smile inside a hospital room during the boy's cancer treatment.
Rashes on 2-year-olds are common.
But this was different.
Suzy Q. Hamilton knew something was off.
So she did what any mother would do -- especially the mother of an infant.
She took Dillyn to the doctor.
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On Sept. 12, 2014, everything inside the Hamilton household changed.
That was the day doctors at Goldsboro Pediatrics saw Dillyn's rash for the first time.
Their concern was immediate.
The test results were not.
"It ended up being a very, very low platelet count and they knew something was wrong the moment they saw it," Mrs. Hamilton said. "They took a white blood cell test and his count came back with pound signs."
Suzy spent the next 24 hours waiting -- anticipating what the outcome of additional tests would be.
The diagnosis would alter the course of Dillyn's life, and his mother's too.
"They told me it was leukemia on Sept. 13," Mrs. Hamilton said. "He went in because a normal white blood cell count is 5,000 to 10,000. His white blood cell count when we got him there to the hospital on Sept. 12 was 220,000. That immediately put him in the high-risk category."
Dillyn and his mother would spend the next 11 days in Vidant Children's Hospital in Greenville -- a place they have grown increasingly familiar to over the last three months as Dillyn's treatments press on in his battle against childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
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On days when Dillyn has little treatment to undergo -- the days he feels well -- he is like any other 2-year-old, Mrs. Hamilton said.
And on the days that are a little tougher -- on the days when he has several different chemotherapy treatments -- he's a fighter.
"He's taking things very well," Mrs. Hamilton said. "Most of the days are good. We're still in the beginning of things, but so far, so good. He's really taking the treatments a lot better than I thought he would."
Suzy is also staying strong through the battle.
She keeps a record of Dillyn's treatments and medication so she will know if anything will give him an adverse reaction if combined with other medications. And she keeps a journal of his everyday life so that Dillyn can look back on it when he is older.
This process, she said, can be highly taxing.
"I've been trying to write in it every day," Mrs. Hamilton said. "Sometimes life's a little busy, so we don't always get the chance. Reliving the whole thing is not my most favorite event in my life, so going back and writing the whole thing down can be a little emotional."
Mrs. Hamilton said she knows she is in this for the long haul.
"This is, no matter what, a three-and-a-half-year process," Mrs. Hamilton said. "So it's not like a flu where you treat it, it's gone, you're done and it's fine. Regardless of whether he's in remission or not, he'll still have treatments from anywhere from once a month to as often as he needs it."
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Suzy, a bartender at Heroes Sport Oyster Bar and Grill, has not been able to work since Dillyn's diagnosis.
But thanks to a supportive community, her loss of income is not a burden she is shouldering alone.
Suzy's friends and colleagues are joining the fray.
On Sunday, Heroes is hosting a motorcycle poker run to raise money to help support the funding of Dillyn's treatments. Participants can sign up on-site beginning at noon.
Kickstands up at 1 p.m.
The riders will go first to Fremont, then on to Wilson, Stantonsburg, LaGrange and finish in Goldsboro to raise money for Dillyn's cause.
Barbecue plates will be served for $7 apiece when the riders return to Heroes at 5 p.m.
Rider registration is $15 and $5 for passengers. Cars and trucks are also welcome to participate.
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While doctors work for a cure and the community rallies around the Hamilton family, Suzy's narrow focus remains on doing everything she can for her son.
The cause of Dillyn's childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia is unknown, and his doctors said the cancer manifested itself only two weeks before Mrs. Hamilton took him into Goldsboro Pediatrics.
"This is something that they don't know what caused it," she said. "They said it happened about two weeks before I took him in for his regular checkup. So something like that can just happen and hit you that quickly."
Dillyn's chances for remission in the induction phase -- the initial 29 days of treatment -- were 85 to 90 percent.
"During those 29 days they do pretty intensive treatment. By the end of that, you're supposed to be in remission," Mrs. Hamilton said. "So they tested one in every 200 cells and that test came back negative. Then, they sent it off to Johns Hopkins and tested one in every 10,000 cells and that came back positive. So that put him in the very-high risk category. So now instead of being in remission and just treatments once a week, now it's more intensive. At the end of this two months hopefully it'll come back negative. But if it comes back positive then we start having to look at things like bone marrow treatments because that means he's not taking to the treatments, and the chances of it coming back are more likely."
Dillyn's chances for remission have since dropped to 60 to 80 percent, but Mrs. Hamilton says their family is staying optimistic about the outcome no matter the statistics.
"I actually feel better that, if it had to happen, it's happening when he's so young," she said. "If it would've happened when he was 5 or 6 he would understand what's going on a little bit more. I think it's been a little easier on him just because right now he's still going off of how we react. So if we act like it's part of normal, everyday life, then he just thinks it's part of growing up."