Doing It For Dylan Silver Valley’S Support For Ailing Boy Overwhelming

Marianne Dean stood up before a few hundred people at the Elks lodge Friday night to express her gratitude.

Local residents have rallied around the Dean family since 7-year-old Dylan Dean was diagnosed in February with Ewing’s sarcoma, a form of bone cancer.

Hundreds of people turned out for Friday’s benefit dinner and a basketball game afterward.

But Dylan’s mother barely made it past “thank you” before the tears hit her, and she handed her husband the microphone.

“I was overwhelmed,” she said Saturday. “I expected maybe 50 people. I had no idea.”

The family anticipates upwards of $400,000 in bills. They face 200 trips to Spokane as Dylan undergoes a total of a year of chemotherapy treatments, and at least three trips to Seattle.

Ewing’s sarcoma generally strikes people between the ages of 10 and 20, and often goes undetected for weeks or months.

The progression from playground accident to something scarier is seared in Marianne Dean’s heart:

On Sept. 27, Dylan fell off a playground swing and broke his arm.

On Dec. 20, a local physician told them something wasn’t right.

On Feb. 9, Spokane doctors told them it was cancer.

Dylan started a 12-week chemotherapy regimen a few weeks ago. The drugs go into his body via a shunt in his chest.

He’s already had a tumor removed from his lung. A May surgery will replace the upper half of the cancer-riddled left arm with a titanium rod. Then Dylan faces another nine months of chemo.

Medicare payments help the family meet bills. The Deans also hope to access Social Security money. The Make-A-Wish Foundation is considering paying for Dylan’s one request: a cruise to Alaska and some salmon fishing.

In the meantime, people in the Silver Valley are doing whatever they can.

Students at Silver Hills Middle School in Osburn mounted a penny drive. Friday night’s dinner was $7 a head. The basketball game later between the mothers of the boy’s and girl’s Wallace High School teams ended at 247-205 - every $1 donation to a team added two points to the score.

All the money from chili dogs and sodas sold at Saturday morning’s Cub Scout Pack 354 Pinewood Derby went to the Dean family. A local DJ spun tunes for free at a benefit dance Friday night. Grocers donated food for several events.

“Everyone is pulling together because it affects everyone, somehow,” said Helen Grismer, whose sons are in Cub Scouts with Dylan. “It hits home.”

Marianne and Dylan Dean visited the school, and talked to Dylan’s classmates about his cancer.

But the second-graders don’t really know what that means.

“I explained it to my son,” said Stacey Jordan, mother of a 7-year-old in Dylan’s class and his scout den. “He just doesn’t understand what cancer is. He thinks he’ll just get better and come back to school tomorrow.”

Dylan, visiting the Wallace restaurant his father runs, has a nasty cough, one of the side effects of the treatments. His spiky blond hair fell out and is growing back baby fine and sparse.

Dylan says he misses his friends in school, and in his Cub Scout pack. For now, a tutor will come to the Dean home. The family doesn’t know when Dylan will return to class.

“It’s a long road back,” Marianne Dean says.

Bob Dean stood up at the Elks lodge Friday night to thank the crowd, after his wife couldn’t go on. “One thing I would add,” Dean said Saturday, looking down at the next round of pizza dough to go into the ovens. “I’d give back any money, flower, presents, everything. I’d give that up in a second to save my son from cancer.”

Donations Donations can be made to “Scouts for Dylan Dean” at the Osburn Bank of America.