Still smiling, Kenny recovering nicely from May pit bull attack ...

ROCK HILL Surgeons will attach ?things? in Kenny Allen?s head he says are shaped like ?kidney beans.?

?Because I?m bald,? doctors will inject a balloon-stretch apparatus filled with a saline solution into his scalp to expand the hair tissue in the Rock Hill boy?s head so it?ll enclose a thin layer of skin made bare from the teeth of a 2-year-old pit bull six months ago.

The surgery, which forces the Allen family to haul several bags and suitcases filled with Kenny?s clothes to a Charlotte hospital at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday, is the first of many doctors hope will restore the hair on the 12-year-old boy?s scalp.

After the balloon?s installed, it?ll have to be pumped with the solution every week for the next several years, said his mother, Becki Allen. Eventually, it?s a process the Allen family will be able to do from home.

Nevertheless, the 12-year-old Rock Hill boy is reluctant.

?I don?t want to have to do it,? he said.

?He says he?s perfectly fine the way he is,? Becki Allen said.

His bald spot, surrounded by a bundle of light brown hair, ?makes me look like Friar Tuck from ?Robin Hood,?? he said.

And, like a character from tales of ?Robin Hood,? Kenny jumped from chairs, ran in and out of the house and performed flips that many thought would be nearly impossible months ago.

?Kenny?s in good spirits,? Kenneth Allen said at the family?s Ridgecrest Road home. ?He?s happy all the time.?

Attacked by neighbor?s dog

On May 30, Kenny, then 11, walked over to a neighbor?s house to borrow a blender. When he arrived in the yard, Dallas, a pit bull mix its owner said had never been aggressive, jumped at Kenny, lodging its teeth into the back of his head.

Kenny managed to free himself and ran home. His father and several neighbors helped Kenny apply pressure to the wound while they waited for an ambulance.

Four inches of Kenny?s scalp was gone.

He was airlifted to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, where he underwent six hours of surgery. Doctors tried to reattach his scalp. It didn?t work.

So doctors began a comprehensive skin grafting and reconstruction process they expect will continue for the next several years.

Wednesday is just another step.

In the meantime, the seventh-grade Saluda Trail Middle School student holds no qualms about his appearance.

For Halloween, he wore the hockey mask of Jason, the mass-murdering psycho with a disfigured head from the ?Friday the 13th? movies.

?We could hear teenagers say, ?Man his head is cool,?? Becki Allen said laughing. ?They couldn?t figure out how we go this head to look like that.?

?Go get attacked by a pit bull kids and stay in school,? Kenny suggested.

His family laughed.

?He is so funny,? said his grandmother, Sue Wilson, who with her husband, Jim, traveled from Florida for Kenny?s surgery. They plan to stay in town till after Thanksgiving.

At their Florida home, the Wilsons have planted gardens for all eight of their grandchildren. Kenny?s is a turtle garden and it?s almost finished, Sue Wilson said.

Noting her grandson?s intelligence, she remembered when he was only several months old and stayed away from a bottle, choosing to use a cup to drink like the big kids.

Years later, Kenny takes advanced classes and calls himself the ?smartest kid? in his history class. He plans to go to Harvard University.

At school, he plays soccer with friends.

He doesn?t fret about missing weeks of school. He?s already cleaned out his locker, and wants doctors to extend his three-day stay in the hospital to at least a week ?for observation.? A teacher will meet with him at home while he?s recovering.

?He?s starting to go places,? Becki Allen said, adding that her son?s slowly overcoming his fear of most dogs.

But not all dogs.

The Allen family went to Food Lion recently, Becki Allen said, where they saw a dog that frightened Kenny. Dogs that bark from car windows when their owners leave them in store parking lots make him nervous.

He reads the newspaper in his journalism class and started watching ?Fox News Rising? as a toddler. He keeps up with the weather.

?It?s a 30 percent chance it?s already raining,? he said as a slow drizzle started outside.

Big wrestling fan

Yet, it?s wrestling that?ll get him going for hours on end.

He sat on his couch and played a World Wrestling Entertainment video game while maintaining a conversation with Casey Moore, his aunt, about bonsai trees and broken guitars. He also insisted that his father had just hours before tried to run a wild turkey off the road on the way home from the doctor?s office.

?I love you man, but it was a buzzard,? Kenneth Allen said smiling.

Since the attack, community support has swelled for the Allen family, who lost Kenny?s paternal grandmother the week of the dog attack. A week before the attack, Kenneth Allen suffered a heart attack. The family had also purchased a new car. A week didn?t pass before someone slammed into it.

Yard sales and community wrestling matches have lifted their spirits. Critics who call Kenny a ?whiner? hurt his feelings.

After learning of Kenny?s story, WWE officials sent one of their biggest fans ? he thinks so, at least ? memorabilia that included action figures, books, magazines and autographed posters.

Two weeks ago, he attended a WWE match in Charlotte, where he sat in seats designated for handicapped customers and watched CM Punk hit Ryback ?in the wrong place.?

Kenny can sound off WWE stats from well before his birth. Camping out in his family?s living room while his bedroom is remodeled for his post-surgery recovery, Kenny flipped through a WWE companion book, finding ?quotes? and pointing at black-and-white pictures of men and women clad in tights.

His grandfather, Jim Wilson, joined him in trading trivia about Sid Vicious and other wrestlers.

?Papa knows everybody,? Kenny said about Wilson.

?Ric Flair?s the champion,? Kenneth Allen said.

Kenny, the WWE expert, was quick to correct him: ?No, he?s not.?

VIDEO BELOW

Source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/11/13/3663925/still-smiling-kenny-recovering.html

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