About Me, About Others

On the About Me page, I described my life and why I named my blog "One in a Thousand."  Today, I want to talk a little about someone else.  Some other people who are One in a Thousand.  On March 5, 2011, my niece (Rae Lynn Deal) had a little baby boy named Joshua.  Joshua wasn't like other little boys.  He was born to be a miracle.  You see, Joshua was born with a tumor growing inside his mouth. The tumor was about the size of a baseball or larger.  The tumor was something called a teratoma. Because ultrasound and other tests identified this tumor before birth, Rae Lynn and husband, Chad, went to specialists and found out that the tumor was life threatening and a serious health problem.  So they did what heroes do.  They made a decision that this baby would live, and this baby would have as good a life as possible for him.  They sought the best hospital and doctors to deal with this type of problem and they took off from their jobs and moved from northern Louisiana to Houston, Texas, to save their baby.  The birth was not easy,  and shortly after birth, Joshua was subjected to major surgery to remove 90% of the tumor. Tests showed there were some cancer cells in the tumor. He had other procedures in the few days following.  Because he had been born a few weeks premature, he not only had to endure recovery from the surgeries and the remaining tumor, he also had to gain weight and strength. He had a week of chemotherapy, too.  He remained in the hospital and in late May, he had surgery to remove the rest of the tumor. He finally went home to Downsville, Louisiana in early June, almost three months after birth.  Due to complications only days later he returned to the hospital for a few days, and is supposed to go home next Monday.

I tell you all this because Joshua - and his family too - are not just a One in a Thousand Family.  I looked up the statistics on this type of teratoma.  It is said to affect one in 4000 babies.  But that's just a statistic, and Joshua isn't a statistic.  He is our miracle.  And he (and family) will always be One in (Four) Thousand.  And he won't just survive.  He will thrive.