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This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories,

and we tell stories about everything here on this show,

from the arts to sports and from business to history and everything in between, including your stories. Send them to our American Stories.com. They're some of our favorites.

Overcoming physical tragedy is no small task, and it's important to hear stories of those that live everyday life well and

beautifully with a handicap. Today we have Hayden Perkins story. Here's Hayden.

I'm a pediatric dentist, so I went to a couple of extra years, two extra years of training

after dental school. And then I went through the whole board certification and stuff like that.

So I'm board certified.

I grew up in a little small town, a little small farm town called Hollandale, Mississippi, over in the Delta.

One of my earliest memories was my dad,

there's an old cemetery on Lake Washington

outside of Glen Island where we,

I pretty much grew up out there.

My grandparents owned a lot of farmland around there,

and so we were on Lake Washington.

My dad's aunts both lived on Lake Washington.

His mother died during childbirth.

So his aunts basically raised him,

and so they lived out there,

and so he took care of them as he got older.

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