Following a bone cancer operation to remove a tumor from his right leg, and 18 months of intensive rehab, an Ohio boy is playing baseball again. "When I was 10-years-old I realized I was limping a lot and I broke my leg and realized I had cancer," Dugan Smith of Fostoria, Ohio, now 13, told WJW-TV in Cleveland.
During an operation called Van Ness rotation-plasty in August 2008, surgeons at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus removed Dugan’s right knee and part of the thigh, rotated the bottom half 180 degrees, moved it up and reconnected his blood vessels.
"I didn’t know if I was ever going to be able to run again. I didn’t know if it was going to work, so there was a hundred things running through my mind and I just try to stay positive," said Smith, now starting pitcher for his Little League team.
For more on Smith’s story, watch this video.
[Source: United Press International]
