IndyStar is documenting Chase and Sadie Smith's lives as they settle into a new marriage and battle Chase's terminal cancer.
BARGERSVILLE -- Sadie Smith bounces into the kitchen barefoot wearing a skirt and black V-neck, pulls some Pop-Tarts from the cabinet and starts breaking off pieces straight from the foil wrapper.
It's nearly 11 a.m. on Memorial Day, a day that will be filled with family and friends streaming in and out, but first it's almost time for another interview, this one with "Inside Edition."
Her husband Chase Smith makes his way downstairs, also in a black T-shirt, a matching ensemble they say they didn't plan.
By now, Chase and Sadie are pros at talking to the media. They've been interviewed so many times they can't even keep track. Their love story has been told worldwide.
Friday will be their one-month wedding anniversary. A wedding that was crafted in four days after Chase, 18, was told his Ewing's sarcoma had returned. The rare bone cancer had spread throughout his body and doctors said, with or without treatment, he had five months to live.
Since then, this couple of high school seniors have been given new hope in a series of intense radiation treatments that will be done on Chase's brain. The oncologist warned Chase the beams of potent energy used to kill the cancer cells had the potential of making him blind.
But it could also buy him time. Six months, maybe more, with Sadie.
To Chase that is now an entire lifetime.
Pushing the limits
Chase pops a piece of cubed watermelon into his mouth as he starts talking about his "alien doctor" at the Cleveland Clinic, radiation oncologist Jacob Scott.
"Alien" because Chase says he is out of this world. When Chase got his latest prognosis, he turned to Scott for help. The doctor, after all, had made a promise to Chase many months ago.
Chase has been through several bouts with Ewing's sarcoma, but the one last May was on his lung, a tumor that started out the size of his heart. After 14 days of chemotherapy Chase received wearing a backpack, scans revealed the tumor hadn't shrunk; it had grown.
Chase was referred to Scott, who concocted a radiation treatment. The tumor vanished.
After that, Scott pulled Chase to the side, away from his parents and talked to him man-to-man.
"If this ever comes back in any spot and you're willing to do anything, you come back to me and we'll talk," Chase recalls Scott telling him. "And I will do anything for you. We'll get it done. We'll push the limits."
That's what Chase needs now, to push the limits. Because he has big plans.
He leans over and wraps his arms around Sadie.
"We want to see her have a great diving career in college, both of us graduate from college," he said. "Live a long, happy marriage."
That's what everyone wants for the couple. But there are risks.
“Being as close as it is to the optic nerves, it could be dangerous,” said Kelli Smith, Chase's mom.
Kelli said she now lets Chase make his medical decisions and tries to stay out of it. After battling this for six years, she believes he is wise enough and it is his choice.
She said after talking to the doctor, though, she feels confident in saving Chase’s sight.
“I know what the statistics are, I see the writing on the wall about Chase’s prognosis with Ewing’s,” she said. “Because of that, I want to make sure that we aren’t doing anything too risky to minimize his quality of life while he is still here. I don’t want him to lose his vision, smell, taste or ability to talk. God has laid a mission on his heart, I want Chase to still be able to do that and enjoy time with Sadie and all of us.”
'OK, is this the last time?'
Kelli is stacking ham and cheese on sliced-up Hawaiian rolls in the kitchen. Her dad and brother will be over soon for lunch.
She looks over as she hears a jingle. Dubs, Chase's 13-week-old English bulldog that Sadie's parents got him as a graduation gift, has rung the bell. Sadie jumps up to let her out.
Dubs, named after a professional Fortnite player, heads for the baby pool on the back porch. Most English bulldogs are not athletic and they definitely don't swim. Dubs does. Kelli Smith shows off a video of Dubs in an in-ground pool the day before, wearing a tiny life vest paddling away.
"I love that she likes the water," said Katilin, 23, Chase's sister. "It's perfect."
Chase was a nationally-ranked swimmer with his sights set on the Olympics before his first diagnosis at age 13. Since, he made it to three state championships. Sadie, who placed third in state as a senior, is headed to IUPUI on a full ride for diving.
As the room watches Dubs splashing in the pool, Chase's dad, Brad Smith, is fiddling with technology at the dining room table, trying to get a Zoom conference set up.
"I cannot hear you," Brad Smith says to the "Inside Edition" people. "I don't know what to do."
Chase and Sadie, who are in their chairs next to him, look at each other and giggle. In a sweet and quiet voice, Sadie asks her father-in-law: "Is the volume all the way up?" Kaitlin and Kelli Smith burst into laughter.
As Brad Smith makes the connection, Chase and Sadie sit up straight and stare into the computer. Sadie fixes her hair.
Chase starts answering the interviewer's first question...
"We went in and had some scans and they came in and told us the news of where all of the tumors had come back," he said. "Of course, every time you get a diagnosis, you're like, 'OK, is this the last time? Is it possible that I'm going to die after this?'"
Living now
Chase and Sadie leave this week for Cleveland to start the radiation treatments. The family usually stays in a hotel across from the Cleveland Clinic. This time, they've gotten a condo, a loft downtown, "to be away from the hospital," said Kelli Smith.
The less reminding of why they are there the better. The more time to just live life.
"We've gotten a lot better news and a lot more hope," said Chase. "And we are putting a lot of hope in God and believe that it's not my time and that time frame will be longer."
This round of treatment will first target his brain, which has tumors on the skull, in the fluid of the lining of his brain and surrounding the pituitary gland. Other tumors in his body -- on Chase's shoulder, lung, back and hip -- are not as pressing right now.
Sadie describes her reaction to Chase's initial diagnosis as "hysterical." Now, after hearing Scott relay his plan, she's more calm.
"He said in six months we will revisit," Sadie said. "So there's hope to even revisiting another spot in six months. He didn't say 'just six months,' so that was really cool."
"Grandpa's here," Kaitlin yells out.
Mark Montgomery walks into the house with Chase's uncle Kaleb, and grabs Chase in a long, tight hug. He starts telling of how from a tiny age Chase was so tough. How that toughness is helping him now.
"Ever since he was a little bitty kid, you know how grandpas will twist their arm or their finger and make them say 'uncle'?" said Montgomery. "I would finally give up before he would give up. His pain tolerance was unreal."
The pain. Chase tried to fight it himself for so long. He hated the pain medication. He vowed not to take it or to take as little as possible. The medication made him drowsy and feel off.
After one surgery, when cadaver and steel replaced his femur, Chase had to be on such high doses that "coming off it was just hell on earth" Chase said.
"I've always tried to stay away from it," he said. "I'll bite my tongue off before I take a ton of pain meds. Just because I'm stubborn."
But now, the cancer has given him no other option. The headaches are terrible, the shooting pain in his shoulder.
"I want to be comfortable when I'm just chilling," he said.
As everyone else talks, Chase gets up from his seat and walks over to Sadie who is at the dining room table. He leans over to stare into her eyes. He plays with her hair. They talk about their plans for the water later that day.
Life for now is lived in the short-term. And maybe, just maybe, that's the best way to live anyway.
"It's going to be such a good day to swim," Chase tells her. "I know," Sadie says smiling. "It's going to be a great day to swim."
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.
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Chase and Sadie find new hope for treatment and more time together - The Indianapolis Star
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