In April 2009, a six year old girl named Jessalyn from General Santos City started to have abdominal pain and vomiting which prompted her parents to bring her for consultation. When she was examined by the doctor, he noticed a mass in Jessalyn’s abdomen and on further work-up, a tumor was considered. She was subsequently referred to Davao Medical Center in Davao City for definitive diagnosis and treatment.
Jessalyn with her parents.
When she first came to us, Jessalyn was a cheerful and cheeky girl who can dance to the latest pop tunes and television music videos. But unknown to this otherwise happy little girl, a tumor is treacherously growing on top of her left kidney, slowly wrapping around the major blood vessels and creeping into her bone marrow. When all the work-ups were done, Jessalyn was diagnosed with a stage 4 neuroblastoma, a type of cancer which has an affinity to neural tissue like the adrenals. Her cancer has spread to her bone marrow. She needed a highly intensive chemotherapy which hopefully will increase her chances to survival. That was the medical situation; the dilemma was how to access the otherwise very expensive chemotherapy medicine. Jessalyn was the youngest of three children, her mother was a housewife and her father works as a garbage collector. Her parents were crestfallen and were praying for a miracle to happen.
And it did. As if by miracle, others may call it fate, or simply answered prayers, the donation of Irinotecan by the Philippine Marines Corps arrived on the day Jessalyn needed the medicine. This donation was part of the cancer medicines donated by the Asia American initiative to the Philippine Marine Corps. And we had access to it because on April 20, 2009 the PMC and the Philippine Society of Pediatric Oncology (PSPO) signed a Manifesto of Joint Advocacy in support of children with cancer. (Refer to CITEMAR06 article, Jan-June 2009 edition).
Fighting and winning over cancer.
Today, Jessalyn has completed four courses of chemotherapy. She has survived a major surgery that removed all tumors including her left kidney. She is bald and a little thinner but she remains the happy and hopeful little girl we first got to know, and we look forward to her writing more chapters in her own story.
