Background

Leigh Smith

The journey that inspired me to establish the Dylan Smith Foundation includes the loss of three infants, but it was the most recent experience in 2008 - when my eldest son aged 11 at the time - was diagnosed with cancer that prompted me to act.

I am married to Bill and we are blessed with three precious boys Cameron 13, Carlton 11, and Owen 8. Dylan Smith was our third son. He died in January 2001. The official cause of his death was ruled as septicaemia from Group B Streptococcus and after putting up a fight for his life, 36 hours after his birth we were encouraged to remove him from the ventilator and make his last moments as comfortable as possible. Dylan took his last breath in my arms. Losing Dylan changed us as a family forever. The prayer on the left is the one we wrote for Dylan's funeral.

Prior to this harrowing experience we had already lost one baby girl Melissa and following Dylan we lost Faith - both due to the early onset of labour for reasons unknown. Our second son, Carlton had a close call when he was hospitalised with bronchiolitis at 3 weeks of age. Soon afterwards Carlton underwent a stomach operation for Pyloric Stenosis when he was just 6 weeks old. Owen, our youngest child was born at just 29 weeks during a caesarean section that was carefully planned in an effort to save both our lives. I had been hospitalised for 7 weeks priot to this due to Placenta Accreta. As you can imagine, Owen's start in life was very fragile and we spent many anxious days, nights and weeks at his side in the special care baby unit, which was by then an environment we were all too familiar with.

Today Owen is a healthy 8 year old miracle full of love and energy. We have never forgotten how lucky we are to have him with us. In fact all of these experiences prompted us to give up our comfortable existence in Surrey, England for a fresh start and to live deeper. We were beginning to live our dream here in Queensland when the biggest storm of all blew us right off our feet in early February 2008. That was when Cameron was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. Cameron spent months in hospital and in nearby accommodation in Brisbane, over an hour from our home on the Sunshine Coast. He underwent chemotherapy and radiation therapy with one of us - more often than not me - constantly at his side while the rest of the family tried to continue with school and work in between visits. Cameron’s battle is not over, but he has staged a remarkable recovery and continues to suffer from a few lingering side effects of the treatment.

It is this particular leg of our journey as a family that has humbled us more than we could ever have imagined. We know first hand about the emotional, spiritual, physical and financial stresses and strains that descend on families who can do little more than stand on the sidelines and watch as their children go through treatment that sometimes takes them to the very brink of death so that they may have life.

The statistics surrounding families who experience the trauma of a life-threatening childhood illness, as well as the loss of a child are shocking. Most families are torn apart and many marriages fail. Choosing to chanel the emotional energy and wisdom of my experiences into a passion for serving families dealing with similar situations via the Dylan Smith Foundation, as well as a parents advisory committe for Queensland Health has certainly helped me find peace. When my race is run if I have helped ease a journey, given love, offered a shoulder to cry on, prayed for, been a friend, shed some light, given hope and lifted one small burden from a family suffering from the gut wrenching anguish of losing a child or standing by helplessly as that prospect looms, then my pain and heartbreak will have been worthwhile.

We are in the very early stages of establishing our fledgling initiative, so please consider supporting one of the numerous projects and initiatives we're working on. Each one provides us with the resources we need to help ease the way for suffering families, as well as to start developing real insight into the preventable causes of these illnesses so that children may be saved. Right now we're looking for at least one Gold Key Foundation Partner to help us move our activities into high gear. Apart from having significant first hand experience in the areas of concern and interest to us, as a team we have extensive international experience in print publishing and digital media production as well as branding strategy. As such we're ideally positioned to offer exceptional value to the right partners. If you'd like more information about partnering with the Dylan Smith Foundation or if you'd like to help or contribute in some practical way please contact me.