He seldom shows it in public because strangers think “it’s gross,” he said.
He hasn’t studied in a classroom in months. He’s now a “homebound” student, and receives lessons from his home economics teacher twice a week. He’s earning A’s and B’s, said his mother, Becki Allen.
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| A year after a pit bull attack, Kenny Allen prepares to undergo another surgery that will hopefully stretch his skin and allow hair to re-grow. Kenny and his dad, Kenneth, enjoy the slide at Fewell Park in Rock Hill.Photo: Andy Burriss |
The teacher made him an assortment of scarves that he swaps out to cover the part of his head that’s naked, said his mother.
The one he wore Tuesday on a trip to Fewell Park looked “like a chef’s hat,” she said.
A year ago, Kenny sported a wrap of gauze and tape around his head, a wound vac that suctioned excess blood and skin and eventually do-rags to conceal his injuries.
A year ago Thursday, he walked to a neighbor’s house to borrow a blender because he craved a smoothie.
When he arrived at Anthony Smith’s doorstep, Smith’s 2-year-old pit bull, Dallas, jumped at Kenny.
The 60-pound dog, which had been left tethered on a cable, lodged its jaw around the 11-year-old boy’s head.
Kenny managed to fend off the dog and ran to his Ridgecrest Road home, clutching the back of his bleeding head. His father and several neighbors helped Kenny apply pressure to the wound while an ambulance was on its way.
Kenny was airlifted to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, where he underwent six hours of surgery as doctors tried to reattach four inches of his scalp torn by the dog’s teeth.
The skin “wouldn’t take,” his father, Kenneth Allen, said a day after his youngest son’s attack.
Kenny became a patient at Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte for 10 days. He returned home, but skin grafting procedures and reconstructive surgery soon followed.
In November, doctors planted a balloon stretch apparatus in his head to enclose the part of Kenny’s scalp that Dallas’ teeth exposed.
Each week, he receives saline injections into the balloon. He doesn’t like them, he said, “because it hurts.”
The solution “sounds like the ocean” and he’s able to put his finger on the bulge it creates under his skin. When he presses it, there’s a squishy noise.
Earlier this week, Kenny, now 12, and his parents learned he would undergo another surgery to restore a head full of sandy blond hair. He will be back at CMC at 6 a.m. Thursday and will sleep while surgeons remove the balloon that stretched his scalp on the top of his head.
Doctors will spend two hours taking out the skin grafts, molding the loose scraps and tending to the area where there’s now only baldness, his mother said.
They’ll stretch the hair follicles so they’ll grow. Doctors won’t be shaving his hair like the last surgery, Kenny said, but instead will cut around the boy’s hair to extract the balloon.
As the hair grows back, it might grow in multiple directions, his parents said.
“It’ll be like having cowlicks all over,” said Kenneth Allen, Kenny’s father.
A doctor suggested he adopt a comb-over to cover the one bald spot that likely will remain.
“I don’t want a comb-over,” Kenny said. “Then, everyone can tell I’m bald.”
But if the hair covers all of his scalp, then Thursday’s operation will be the boy’s last surgery.
That’s his hope. He says he doesn’t mind too much if he still has one bald spot after the surgery.
His dad has one, he said, and so do some of his peers at Saluda Trail Middle School.
He had the option to have the procedure done Wednesday, but he asked to delay it a day so he could “prepare.” That preparation included going out to dinner with his mom and stuffing “my face with as much food as I can.”
‘Still a kid’
In Fewell Park, Kenny twirled sticks, went down a slide and wrote in the sand, “Kenny Rocks.”
He talked about DC Comics characters. Bizarro, an antagonistic clone of Superman often depicted with a childlike mentality, is his favorite. If he could pick, he’d have Bizarro’s superpowers, “heat breath” instead of “frost breath” and “frost vision” instead of “heat vision.”
Marvel Comics fans, he warns, should keep their distance.
He feels safe at his Ridgecrest Road home and doesn’t shudder at the sight of a dog. The bark still bothers him, though.
He attends counseling sessions alongside his father, who suffers from flashbacks of his son running into their home clutching his head, chunks of his flesh missing and part of his skull exposed.
Initially, Kenny expected to enjoy his stint away from school. Now, he misses it, he said.
He spends a lot of time indoors, his parents said. He plays games available on mobile devices, such as DragonVale and Hay Day, which requires him to feed digital sheep so they’ll grow wool.
Friends don’t visit as much and special trips are few and far in between.
At the park, Kenny led his parents down a wooded path leading to a creek. They spotted a baby snake – possibly a copperhead – and Kenny later found a “snake hole” under a small wooden bridge.
“He’s still a kid – nothing’s changed that,” Kenneth Allen said about his son.
A week before Kenny’s attack, Kenneth Allen went to the hospital after suffering from a heart attack. A few days later, his mother lapsed into a coma before she eventually died. A year later, the hurt is “automatically resurfacing,” he said.
Faith in God, he said, and hopes for his son lift his spirits.
Minutes into a conversation, Kenny took off his headdress, sat under a pavilion and played games. He quickly put his scarf back on as a family, and their dog, approached the nearby jungle gym.
His biggest hope is that he won’t be in the hospital on July 4, his 13th birthday.
“It would be totally boring,” he said.
This year, he has hopes for an iPhone 4S with the Siri intelligence application that will speak to him – he’ll rename it Rudy – and tell him he’s “the ultimate champion.”
Healing for pet owner
The same day Kenny lost a set of hair, Anthony Smith lost a beloved pet.
Dallas, an American Terrier mix born in Smith’s laundry room, had never been aggressive, Smith said in the days after Kenny’s attack. Nevertheless, his fate was “sealed” when he attacked Kenny.
York County Animal Control officials euthanized the dog and shipped its body to the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Dallas, who Smith said was current on all his shots and vaccinations, tested negative for rabies.
A year later, Smith said he’s “thankful that Kenny’s all right.”
“Dogs are replaceable, people aren’t,” he said.
The day after Kenny’s attack, Smith drove to the Allen home and spoke with Kenneth Allen. He was apologetic.
“God was there,” Smith said this week about the attack. “He had an angel watching him that day.”
Kenny visits his neighbors. A few weeks ago, Smith, his family and Kenny went to Landsford Canal State Park in Chester County.
“Kenny had a ball,” Smith recalled. “He had a fun time.
“He makes me laugh. He has a comedian attitude, a sense of humor attitude. That has helped us heal.”
Parents stressed
Since the attack, Kenny has spent days at the Great Wolf Lodge in Charlotte; Historic Brattonsville in McConnells; the Come-See-Me festival in Rock Hill; and Hawksnest in Boone, N.C., where he and his family went snow tubing down a slope.
Trips like that, his father said, take a bite out of their finances. But, Kenny “got a smile on him for that day.”
Financial hardships are still very real for Kenny’s parents.
Kenneth Allen works during the day at US Foods. At night, he mows lawns.
Becki Allen works seven days a week, but still musters energy to entertain her son and get him out of the house. She still makes it to church on Sunday evenings, too.
“She says that’s where her strength comes from,” Kenneth Allen said.
“Praying,” Becki Allen said, helps her make it.
“I’m the backbone, trying to make the money,” Kenneth Allen said, adding that he used most of his vacation time to transport his son to and from doctor’s appointments. He expects to have to take more time off in the aftermath of another surgery.
“You feel like you’re letting the company down, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” he said.
Community support has showered the Allen family.
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| A year after a pit bull tore 4 inches of his scalp off his head, Kenny Allen prepares to undergo another surgery that will hopefully stretch his skin and allow hair to re-grow. Kenny at Fewell Park in Rock Hill. ANDY BURRISS |
Members of their church shaved their heads on a Sunday morning in support of Kenny. A neighbor orchestrated a community yard sale, while members of a local bike club coordinated a charity wrestling match.
One of Becki Allen’s friends contacted several local fireworks stores, which donated firecrackers for Kenny on his birthday. World Wrestling Entertainment sent him boxes filled with memorabilia, including posters, T-shirts, action figures and magazines.
Kenny says he attained celebrity status last summer.
“Some day, I’ll be even more famous,” he said.
He still wants to be a wrestler. No, a marine biologist. No, an actor. Maybe a wrestler and an actor who does British voiceovers.
“I know everything there is to know about wrestling,” including Kane and The Undertaker’s parentage and storylines. “If anybody needs an acting job” or intern, “I’m there.”
(thestate.com - May 30, 2013)
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