As everyone at his high school was getting ready for homecoming, Dalton Levine was getting ready for chemotherapy.
“I felt my stomach drop, he said. “You’re trying to process it because no one ever figures you’re going to have cancer.”
Levine was diagnosed with cancer two years ago. He has dreamed of being a competitive dancer ever since he was four years old.
“It allows me to express everything that I’m feeling,” Levine said.
During his two years as a patient at the Children’s Hospital Colorado, Levine and his doctors and nurses became family.
Meet Nurse Flori Legette and Dr. Carrye Cost. They treated Levine after he was diagnosed with Adrenocortical Carcinoma.
“Dalton is a very special person to us,” Legette said, “and every time I talk about him, I cry.”
Having Legette and Dr. Cost on his side in a fight so many lose means everything to the 18-year-old, who can only begin to explain his appreciation.
“Doctors and nurses aren’t asked to have such a close relationship with their patients you know,” Levine said. “It’s meant to be you’re supposed to treat this person … but I think they go above and beyond that.”
Levine isn’t the first cancer patient Children’s Hospital has seen and he certainly won’t be the last.
He says Dr. Cost and Nurse Legette helped him stay positive, allowing him to get back on his feet and do the thing he loves.
“One of the things that my mom first asked when I immediately came in was, ‘can he still dance?” Levine said.
The good news is he can – and he won’t be stopping anytime soon.
“It’s definitely something I’ll continue to do for a long time,” Levine said.
