Back in early August, when the natatorium at Indian Creek High School was named in his honor, Chase Smith could hear the clock ticking.
His time was just about up — at least according to every realistic diagnosis he’d received.
Funny thing about Smith, though, is that real human limits often don’t apply to him. Now well past the outer edge of the window he was given, the 19-year-old is feeling better than he has in months.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryAs the high school swim season dawns, Smith is now helping to coach his former teammates in the pool that bears his name, and that ticking clock has somehow faded out of earshot.
Sure, some days are rougher than others as he continues to go through radiation and chemotherapy treatments. But he is back in his happy place, one that has served as a different sort of medicine ever since Ewing’s sarcoma first invaded his life in the summer of 2014, and those around him can once again see the impact that returning to the pool in recent weeks has had on him.
“Being around the water and being back in his safe space, his home place that gives him such good memories,” said Kelli Smith, his mother. “It gives him a purpose to get up and out of the house to do something. So even if he feels crummy, he still goes.”
And as he’s continued to do so, those crummy-feeling days seem to be fewer and farther between.
Against all odds
When Chase Smith received the fifth Ewing’s diagnosis of his teenage years back in early April, doctors estimated he had between three and five months to live. He was determined to make the most of that time, and he did — he got married, graduated from high school and became a bit of a celebrity.
But by the time the natatorium dedication ceremony took place Aug. 2 at Indian Creek, Smith was visibly drained and looked every bit the part of someone whose hourglass was down to its last few grains of sand. He had lost 40 pounds, in part because he simply couldn’t eat enough while dealing with shingles in his throat and mouth sores from chemotherapy. At one point this summer, he was on hospice care because the pain was so constant and unbearable that he needed to stay connected to an IV to manage it.
For some stretches, Smith — who about a year ago was getting by with aspirin while walking around on a broken femur — was only out of bed for a couple of hours a day.
But then, a funny thing happened. Around Labor Day, when he was hitting the back end of the survival range that his doctors had laid out for him in early spring, Smith started feeling better. He hasn’t gotten a full-body scan in a while, so it’s hard to say for sure where things stand now with the tumors that had popped up all over his body earlier this year. But the radiation and chemo appears to have fended off the most immediate threats and stabilized him overall. He’s gained back those 40 pounds and even a little bit more over the past two or three months, and he’s able to remain up and about for about 12 to 13 hours a day.
“At the beginning of this journey, they were estimating three to five months or whatever, and what’s ironic is, around that five-month mark, everybody in the medical world sort of expected me to feel down and start to lose some ground and go downhill,” Smith said. “But it was the exact opposite; that five-month mark, that’s when I really started to feel better, started feeling like doing stuff. That’s when I first started coaching here, around that time. So it’s like the exact opposite of what was guessed was going to happen.”
Family ties
Being around the water has always been therapeutic for Smith, especially as he’s fought Ewing’s sarcoma five times over the past six-plus years. But what motivated him even more to get back around the pool and into the coaching game was the opportunity to spend more time bonding with his family — particularly his father Brad Smith, the longtime Indian Creek head coach, and cousins Joey and Sam, who will both still be swimming for the Braves this coming season.
“The very first reason I started doing this is to spend time with my dad,” Chase Smith said of his foray into coaching. “Our relationship has rocket-shipped the past six months; not that we ever had a bad relationship, but we’ve gotten so much closer. Just me getting older, becoming a man and being able to relate to each other more. Every second I get with him is precious to me.”
The same goes for his time with Joey and Sam. When he received his latest diagnosis in the spring, Smith set a goal for himself to live long enough to see his cousins compete at the 2021 state meet, which was going to require him lasting about six months past what had been laid out as the best-case scenario.
Kelli Smith still begins to tear up just thinking about those moments.
“His love for his cousins is just so immense,” she said, “and to be able to witness them at that level again is just something that’s near to his heart.”
Right now, it’s well beyond just witnessing. Smith has been able to pay a lifetime of swimming expertise forward for the benefit of not only his cousins, but the entire Indian Creek team. With Joey and Sam, he’s focusing more on helping with technical improvements to cut time. With some of the other Braves, he’s serving as a mentor more from the mental side of the sport.
Brad Smith is thrilled to have his son at poolside with him because of the positive impact it has on the team — Chase Smith was, after all, a three-time state qualifier despite never truly having a clean bill of health during his high school career — and on his life.
“I think it’s just huge,” Brad Smith said. “First of all, just to have something. He’s at that point where he can’t really commit to a college, or even just taking some classes or anything like that because you never know what’s going to pop up. Definitely just giving him something to do where we can pull on that wealth of swim knowledge.
“It’s a great blessing to me just to have somebody else on deck that we can turn to, and somebody that I can trust. … It’s definitely good to have him here.”
‘An extra piece’
Despite the legions of friends and well-wishers he has across Johnson County and well beyond, Chase Smith’s inner circle had always remained relatively tight. His parents, older sister Kaitlin, day-one friends from school and the swim team have always been there to support him, shield him and provide some semblance of normalcy whenever needed. But that circle expanded just a little bit when he started dating Mooresville diver Sadie Mills during their senior year.
The two clicked instantly, and after Smith received his latest and least promising diagnosis in early April, he decided there was no sense in wasting any time; he proposed, and the two got married in an intimate ceremony April 29 at Mills’ house.
Sadie moved in with the Smiths and provided an infusion of positivity precisely when it was needed the most. Even after Smith was effectively read a death sentence, his wife has refused to accept the possibility of a bad outcome.
“She is probably the most optimistic one out of the group, out of my inner circle,” Chase Smith said, “and anytime there’s negative thoughts, she’s just a shutdown of negativeness. So it’s been amazing to have her right by my side purely off that. But being able to have someone to come home to every single night and be able to decompress to … to be able to get that affection every night when I’m going home, it’s just good overall.”
Kelli Smith marvels at the willingness of Sadie, now a freshman diver at IUPUI, to make whatever sacrifices and accommodations are necessary.
“There are not many kids who can get married and live with their in-laws,” she said, adding that the positive vibes she’s brought to the family have been crucial.
“She will not talk about the ‘what if,’” Kelli Smith said of her daughter-in-law. “She just quickly nips it in the bud.
“She is just an extra piece to a puzzle that we didn’t know was missing a piece.”
House money
Though Sadie’s optimism has indeed helped buoy everyone’s spirits and helped Chase Smith yet again defy the odds, the unfortunate truth is that the science is what it is. Barring a miracle well beyond the scope of the ones he’s already pulled off, his remaining time is still limited.
But getting past that original five-month window certainly changed the Smiths’ outlook. Instead of watching the calendar and wondering when the end would come, they’ve decided to seize the moment and make the most of whatever amount of time they have left together.
Basically, they’re playing with house money at this point, and they’re letting it ride.
“We’re just taking it and going with it until we have a reason,” Kelli Smith said. “You kind of get nervous if you let your head go there, and so I quickly changed the thought and think, OK, we’ve got to be thankful for this and this and this. We can’t think about when the next thing is going to happen, because then we’re going to waste away so much.”
Feeling better than he has since early spring, Smith is making the most of the opportunity. He’s been able to take some trips — he and Brad Smith went to a football game at Clemson late last month — and he’s enjoying the chance to be on the pool deck every day mentoring young Braves who grew up idolizing him.
Each day is a blessing, and he’s too busy living now to worry about how many days are left.
“I’m not dumb. I know there’s a high possibility of fatality at this point, and I’m understanding of that,” Chase Smith said. “But at the same time, anything is possible with God, and I just feel like I have a lot more to do and a lot more to give to the world than I have been able to yet, and I just feel confident in what we’re doing right now.
“I don’t know when I’m going to go, but it’s not soon. It’s not now.”
