It's not just dust she has to avoid. The former softball player said she has to avoid watermelon, peaches and her favorite fruit, strawberries.

"In the hospital, I had to have the first of everything," she said. "If I had a sandwich, they had to open a new loaf of bread."

She doesn't know how she might have done in the state finals, but she was grateful for the chance to sit in the sunshine with her friends and watch it from the stands.

"It was really good just to be at the rodeo," said Houghton, who will start radiation next week. "(Being sick) changed my perspective a lot."

Two lessons, she said, she will always carry with her.

"Your attitude is everything," she said. "And there is a lot worse things that what you have."

And while lymphoma may have shifted her perspective and deprived her of a few things, it has not deterred her from continuing on with her life's plans. After radiation, she'll be attending cosmetology school in American Fork — and, I'm sure, sampling everything on the do not do list, including attending rodeos and eating strawberries.

No, I don't think even

McKenzie Houghton's doctors would define the soft-spoken teenager as defiant.

More like determined to enjoy life — dust and all.

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E-mail: adonaldson@desnews.com