BajaNews - 12-11-2005 at 10:57 AM
http://sun.yumasun.com/artman/publish/articles/story_20992.p...
BY PAIGE LAUREN DEINER
Dec 10, 2005
EJIDO MERIDA, Baja Calif. ? Hector Manuel Valles Benitez, 7, chased his pet pigeon as it fluttered from couch to couch, trying to escape the boy's
grasp.
As he ran, arms outstretched, Hector Manuel looked like any other boy. But moments later his blue T-shirt rode up and exposed long scars on his
stomach that mark the fight that Benitez has been waging against cancer.
Hector Manuel was first diagnosed with cancer when he was a year old and since then has undergone seven major surgeries, the last of which removed
parts of his stomach and intestine. Barbara Benitez, his mother, said she had been hopeful that with the last surgery, her son had put the cancer
behind him.
But a recent trip to the doctor showed that the boy has tumors growing in his intestines.
On Monday, mother and son will leave Ejido Merida, a small community near Los Algodones, and fly to Guadalajara so that Hector Manuel can undergo 20
sessions of radiation. Benitez said doctors hope to shrink the tumors and then operate. She said, though, if the tumors don't shrink, there is little
the doctors can do.
He will come home to die.
Hector Manuel shook his head no when asked if he wanted to go to the hospital in Guadalajara.
His mother said he is a good patient, one who doesn't fight the nurses who stick him with needles like the other children do. The radiation
treatments, she said, leave him sick and drained.
"He knows what he's getting into. He just sticks out his arms. He knows what's coming," she said.
But Benitez said Hector Manuel's biggest fear is not the needles or the radiation therapy, but that Santa Claus won't be able to find him.
"He's scared that Santa Claus won't be able to come because we will be so far from home," she said.
Benitez said her son has asked Santa for a remote-controlled car. But she said the family cannot afford to buy it. She said it's heartbreaking that
she can't give her boy the one thing he wants for Christmas ? a $15 toy car.
But this is only one of the trying moments the family has had. Benitez said the past six years have been tough on her family, not only emotionally but
also financially.
Hector Manuel has taken a lot of Benitez's time, something that she said her other three children resent.
"I haven't haven been able to spend time with my other kids," she said.
And she also hasn't been able to work. Caring for Hector Manuel is a full-time job. He can't digest many foods and has trouble having a bowel
movement.
Her husband is a farm worker and earns between $40 and $50 a week in the fields. Benitez said Hector Manuel's medicine ? NuLYTELY ? costs about $40 a
day. She said the family doesn't have the money to give it to him daily so they dilute the medicine with water so that it lasts longer.
Benitez said the family prays that they will find a way to afford Hector Manuel's treatments.
She said that the last time she and her son went to Guadalajara it cost $500. She said she made that money by selling sodas and chocolates on the side
of the highway.
She said she expects this monthlong trip to cost the same amount, but this time she only has $60 to spend. Benitez said she is worried that she won't
have enough money for the trip.
"People don't want to buy sodas now," she said. "It's too cold."
People can donate to the the Benitez family by placing money a jar by the register at Factory-2-U, 2800 S. Pacific Ave. in Yuma.
Benitez said that her dream is that this treatment will work and that he will get better.
"I wish that he would give his disease to me and that he would be well," she said.
Paige Lauren Deiner can be reached at
pdeiner@yumasun.com or 539-6872.
PEOPLE CAN DONATE TO THE BENITEZ FAMILY BY PLACING MONEY IN THE JAR IN THE REGISTER AT FACTORY-2-U, 2800 S. PACIFIC AVE. IN YUMA.