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Monday
March 15, 2010 Since 1922 |
Baytown boys coming out ahead in cancer battle
By Dave Rogers
The Baytown Sun Published December 19, 2009 Dylan Garcia swung for the fences in the recent fall ball season and Timothy Rose can’t wait until he can resume his pitching career this spring.
But both Baytown boys have already hit home runs in their recovery from cancer.
Doctors at Houston’s Texas Childrens Hospital have declared both in remission from the devastating cell disorders that threatened their lives not so long ago.
Garcia, an 8-year-old third grader at Victoria Walker Elementary, was diagnosed in July of 2007 with medulloblastoma, a form of brain cancer. It presented with a loss of balance and extreme headaches.
Doctors discovered in November of 2008 that Rose, 13, and an eighth grader at Baytown Christian Academy, had Lymphoblastic T-Cell Lymphoma.
It is a form of cancer that caused pain and swelling throughout his body and tumors in his chest and abdomen that made breathing difficult.
Friday, both boys were running and playing basketball at the Baker Road Baptist Church, where Tim’s father, Marvin Rose, is pastor.
“He’s done very well,” the pastor said of his son. “We’re very grateful. A lot of people have said a lot of prayers.”
The Rose family consists of Marvin and wife Melinda, a teacher at Lee College, Tim and older sisters Hanna and Sarah.
Dylan’s parents, Melissa and Baldemar Garcia, a refinery worker, have one other child, 12-year-old Devin.
“It has sure been life-changing for everybody involved,” Dylan’s mother said. “You sure appreciate things much more.”
Dylan Garcia was preparing to enter the first grade when he fell ill. Instead, he spent much of the fall of 2007 and spring of 2008 at the Houston hospital undergoing week-long sessions of chemotherapy. Then, almost like clockwork, he had to return to the hospital when infections followed nearly every chemo session.
It was a frail-looking little bald-headed boy who showed up in March of 2008 to throw out the first pitch for his Baytown North Little League.
“That was right after he finished chemo,” Dylan’s mom said. “And then he got an infection that made him go back into the hospital for two more weeks. But that was his last time in the hospital, in March (2008).”
Garcia was able to reunite on a full-time basis with his friends and classmates at Victoria Walker for his second-grade year of school, and this past spring, he rejoined his Little League team for a full season, one he followed up by playing in the recent fall league.
“I’d rather play outside,” Dylan said, “and I like to go places. I play video games when we have to go places.”
A Sony Play Station Portable Go tops Dylan’s Christmas list this year, while Rose is hoping Santa Claus brings him a new baseball bat and glove.
He can’t wait to join the junior high baseball team at BCA this spring. To get in shape, he’s been playing on the school’s eighth-grade basketball team, making the starting lineup for the team’s most recent game.
In order to be allowed to play basketball, Tim volunteered to have his intravenous port removed from his chest. The implant allowed nurses to give him his medicine without having to insert new IV lines.
Tim must return to TCH once a month for intravenous chemotherapy through November of 2010, the second anniversary of his diagnosis, and nurses must start a new IV line each time.
“It’s not really bad,” Tim said of the needle sticks.
He also takes as many as two dozen pills each night before going to bed.
According to the National Cancer Institute, the term remission means all signs and symptoms of cancer have disappeared, although cancer still may be in the body.
“They won’t you you’re cancer-free or cured until you’ve been five years in remission,” Melissa Garcia said.
Like Dylan, Tim spent the first year of his illness shuttling back and forth to the hospital.
“When we first started (treatments), sometimes we’d have to go back and forth to the hospital every day of the week,” Melinda Rose said.
Both boys lost a lot of weight and, with chemo, their hair. Both have come back now, though slightly different than before.
Dylan’s brown hair is a shade darker and coarser and he’s still not ready for the 72-ounce Big Tex steak. Tim’s hair, previously blond, grew back curly and red, and he can’t get enough Buffalo wings.
The boys were home-schooled during their first year of treatment. Despite how bad their disease and medicine made them feel, though, they both kept pace with classmates and rejoined them after a year.
“I always had a lot of friends at high school, but this made them appreciate me a lot more,” Tim said.
Connecting the two boys, besides their hometown and hours of stories swapped by their parents about shared experiences with the miracle workers at Texas Childrens Hospital, is Baytown Good Samaritan John Hunt.
To defray the expenses of both families, the past two winters Hunt organized fundraisers connected to the Houston Marathon and the TCH Kids Run that accompanies the marathon.
Hunt and the Garcia and Rose families met Friday to talk about this year’s fundraiser, which Hunt plans to help the family of 11-year-old Cheyenne Bauer of Tulsa, Okla. Her father, Josh Bauer, had helped as a volunteer in last year’s efforts for Rose, before his daughter was diagnosed with cancer.
According to Hunt, Plans are to again organize Baytown students to run in the Kids Run, which this year will be held on Saturday, Jan. 16.
“There won’t be any fundraising for the Kids Fun Run,” he said. “This will be just for fun; to get the kids out there and show what these young men (Dylan and Tim) have accomplished.
“We’ll do a fundraiser later in the year, or time it for the Relay For Life.”
For more information about Hunt’s plans, contact him at 281-797-1998.
The Baytown Sun Published December 19, 2009 Dylan Garcia swung for the fences in the recent fall ball season and Timothy Rose can’t wait until he can resume his pitching career this spring.
But both Baytown boys have already hit home runs in their recovery from cancer.
Doctors at Houston’s Texas Childrens Hospital have declared both in remission from the devastating cell disorders that threatened their lives not so long ago.
Garcia, an 8-year-old third grader at Victoria Walker Elementary, was diagnosed in July of 2007 with medulloblastoma, a form of brain cancer. It presented with a loss of balance and extreme headaches.
Doctors discovered in November of 2008 that Rose, 13, and an eighth grader at Baytown Christian Academy, had Lymphoblastic T-Cell Lymphoma.
It is a form of cancer that caused pain and swelling throughout his body and tumors in his chest and abdomen that made breathing difficult.
Friday, both boys were running and playing basketball at the Baker Road Baptist Church, where Tim’s father, Marvin Rose, is pastor.
“He’s done very well,” the pastor said of his son. “We’re very grateful. A lot of people have said a lot of prayers.”
The Rose family consists of Marvin and wife Melinda, a teacher at Lee College, Tim and older sisters Hanna and Sarah.
Dylan’s parents, Melissa and Baldemar Garcia, a refinery worker, have one other child, 12-year-old Devin.
“It has sure been life-changing for everybody involved,” Dylan’s mother said. “You sure appreciate things much more.”
Dylan Garcia was preparing to enter the first grade when he fell ill. Instead, he spent much of the fall of 2007 and spring of 2008 at the Houston hospital undergoing week-long sessions of chemotherapy. Then, almost like clockwork, he had to return to the hospital when infections followed nearly every chemo session.
It was a frail-looking little bald-headed boy who showed up in March of 2008 to throw out the first pitch for his Baytown North Little League.
“That was right after he finished chemo,” Dylan’s mom said. “And then he got an infection that made him go back into the hospital for two more weeks. But that was his last time in the hospital, in March (2008).”
Garcia was able to reunite on a full-time basis with his friends and classmates at Victoria Walker for his second-grade year of school, and this past spring, he rejoined his Little League team for a full season, one he followed up by playing in the recent fall league.
“I’d rather play outside,” Dylan said, “and I like to go places. I play video games when we have to go places.”
A Sony Play Station Portable Go tops Dylan’s Christmas list this year, while Rose is hoping Santa Claus brings him a new baseball bat and glove.
He can’t wait to join the junior high baseball team at BCA this spring. To get in shape, he’s been playing on the school’s eighth-grade basketball team, making the starting lineup for the team’s most recent game.
In order to be allowed to play basketball, Tim volunteered to have his intravenous port removed from his chest. The implant allowed nurses to give him his medicine without having to insert new IV lines.
Tim must return to TCH once a month for intravenous chemotherapy through November of 2010, the second anniversary of his diagnosis, and nurses must start a new IV line each time.
“It’s not really bad,” Tim said of the needle sticks.
He also takes as many as two dozen pills each night before going to bed.
According to the National Cancer Institute, the term remission means all signs and symptoms of cancer have disappeared, although cancer still may be in the body.
“They won’t you you’re cancer-free or cured until you’ve been five years in remission,” Melissa Garcia said.
Like Dylan, Tim spent the first year of his illness shuttling back and forth to the hospital.
“When we first started (treatments), sometimes we’d have to go back and forth to the hospital every day of the week,” Melinda Rose said.
Both boys lost a lot of weight and, with chemo, their hair. Both have come back now, though slightly different than before.
Dylan’s brown hair is a shade darker and coarser and he’s still not ready for the 72-ounce Big Tex steak. Tim’s hair, previously blond, grew back curly and red, and he can’t get enough Buffalo wings.
The boys were home-schooled during their first year of treatment. Despite how bad their disease and medicine made them feel, though, they both kept pace with classmates and rejoined them after a year.
“I always had a lot of friends at high school, but this made them appreciate me a lot more,” Tim said.
Connecting the two boys, besides their hometown and hours of stories swapped by their parents about shared experiences with the miracle workers at Texas Childrens Hospital, is Baytown Good Samaritan John Hunt.
To defray the expenses of both families, the past two winters Hunt organized fundraisers connected to the Houston Marathon and the TCH Kids Run that accompanies the marathon.
Hunt and the Garcia and Rose families met Friday to talk about this year’s fundraiser, which Hunt plans to help the family of 11-year-old Cheyenne Bauer of Tulsa, Okla. Her father, Josh Bauer, had helped as a volunteer in last year’s efforts for Rose, before his daughter was diagnosed with cancer.
According to Hunt, Plans are to again organize Baytown students to run in the Kids Run, which this year will be held on Saturday, Jan. 16.
“There won’t be any fundraising for the Kids Fun Run,” he said. “This will be just for fun; to get the kids out there and show what these young men (Dylan and Tim) have accomplished.
“We’ll do a fundraiser later in the year, or time it for the Relay For Life.”
For more information about Hunt’s plans, contact him at 281-797-1998.