By
Hillary Davis
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Alternative to bone marrow makes recovery possible for 13-year-old cancer patient
The Tucson teen known to many by his first name has begun his latest battle against leukemia at University Medical Center, with a little encouragement from his friends.
Carlos Valencia checked into the hospital yesterday morning and received his first dose of chemotherapy at 10 p.m., which will repeat once every six hours for the next four days. After about two days, he will be given more chemotherapy-and then radiation treatment and a regimen of strong immunosuppressant drugs.
Carlos' chance of survival are about 50 percent with the cord blood transplant he will undergo on April 16. He is expected to stay in the hospital, or as he calls it, "the slammer," for at least six weeks.
He is optimistic, but nonetheless gearing up for what he expects to be the "most boring two months of my life."
But yesterday afternoon, the 13-year-old UA basketball fanatic enjoyed a visit from representatives of his beloved Wildcats.
Men's basketball associate head coach Jim Rosborough, graduate assistant coach Josh Pastner and junior forward Rick Anderson stopped by the pediatric ward to greet Carlos as he began his long stay.
Pastner said they came to say hello to Carlos, who traveled to San Antonio to watch the Wildcats beat Illinois and advance to the Final Four, courtesy of the team.
Carlos' situation puts life's minor inconveniences and disappointments - namely, Monday's loss to Duke in the championship game of the NCAA tournament - in perspective, Pastner said.
"We lost just a game. He's battling a game of life," he said. "He's going to beat it."
Carlos not only approaches his illness with determination to recover, but without self-pity.
"God gave me this, and I am just going to go through this like He wanted me to," he said. "Before I know it, the two months are going to be over."
Carlos' father, Ford Valencia, said the boy's spirit has helped the entire family with the burden and uncertainty of his rare form of cancer.
"We're going to do well because of him (and his) faith," he said. "He's the one that is carrying everybody."
Carlos, sitting with his mother Cecilia and 10-year-old brother Brian, wore a sheepish smile when his father proudly announced that his sports-loving son would make an outstanding sportscaster.
"He's a dreamer, and he will achieve those dreams because of his faith, because of his strength, because of the courage he has," Ford Valencia said.
Carlos suffers from chronic myelogenous leukemia, which represents a small fraction - about 2 to 3 percent, according to the National Cancer Institute - of all childhood leukemia cases, said Dr. Michael Graham, director of the pediatric bone marrow transplant program at UMC.
A world-wide search for a suitable bone marrow donor yielded nothing for Carlos, although Tucson drives added more than 3,000 potential donors to the national bone marrow registry.
Carlos' next hope, Graham said, was an umbilical cord blood transplant.
Stem cells from newborns' umbilical cords can be used to help cancer patients by repopulating a patient's blood and immune system, similarly to bone marrow. Unlike those found in bone marrow, though, the stem cells are immature and less likely to be rejected, and they require less specific matching - increasing the chances of finding a donor.
The blood came from the umbilical cord that would have otherwise been discarded from a baby born in Colorado.
Graham said there is the possibility that the blood may not take or Carlos could develop an infection, which he will become much more prone to in his weakened state.
Carlos, though, is ready for the treatment to "bring it on."
"I'm totally set for this transplant," he said.
