Jose Rocha was like any other high school student, until his body started breaking down from illness.
Note: This is part one in a three-part series.
Jose Rocha is like almost every other student: He loves his truck and the freedom that driving represents. He goes to the gym. As a high school senior, he’s beginning to think about life beyond San Benito High School.
It’s November and eight months from graduation. Rocha goes to the gym three times a day – in the morning before school, after he gets home and late at night. The energy from his workouts buoys him through his morning classes. So the normally enthusiastic Rocha, 18, is confused in December when he starts to feel a tremendous pain in his back. He twists and stretches but the pain won’t leave.
Rocha has pulled muscles and he knows this isn’t the same. Something is terribly wrong.
He tells the doctors the pain is deeper than the bone. They call for bone scans, x-rays and MRIs. He doesn’t have a pinched nerve. It isn’t a herniated disc. They can’t find the source of the pain. One doctor suggests Jose is lying about the pain because the feeling he describes doesn’t make sense.
‘Abnormality in the blood’ for Rocha
Rocha fixes things. He is not – usually – the one who needs fixing. Friends and peers look to him as their unofficial counselor. Just this year, Rocha left the house late at night to help a friend whose parents were going through a foreclosure. He didn’t tell his parents the whole conversation, but he reassured his friend the family would learn from the experience and become stronger.
Rocha is good with people. Even while still in junior high – nearly six years ago – Rocha was helping people find their way when he convinced a young boy hiding in a broken-down shed to return to his family. The boy had run away from home and told Rocha he wanted to go to Chicago. Rocha asked what he would do when he got there. Then, he convinced the boy to go home again.
“No one else could talk sense into this kid,” recalls his mother, Alicia Andrade-Rocha.
In his neighborhood, Rocha doesn’t just fix people. He also fixes cars. Rocha has lived in three neighborhoods in Hollister and in each place, neighbors come to him and his dad for help with their vehicles. Rocha considered a career in engineering or architecture where he could build things and work with designs, but teachers and campus supervisors say he should be a counselor or a psychologist. It’s his second semester of high school and he can see graduation from here. Just a few more months. After high school, Rocha will be a psychologist because he is good with people.
It’s January now and Jose is feeling sluggish. It’s hard to get out of bed. He is falling asleep in class. He goes to the gym just once a day. Sometimes he doesn’t go at all. He can barely run a mile when a month ago he used to run four to six miles daily. The 168-pound high school student used to bench press 250 pounds but now it hurts to get out of bed, sit in a chair or walk.
The specialists can’t name this pain that’s deeper than the bone, so Rocha returns to his childhood doctor for another perspective. The pediatrician draws blood, thinking organ failure might create the kind of pain Jose describes.
“That same day, he called my dad,” Rocha says. “He didn’t want to tell us exactly what he found in the blood, so all he would say is there’s an ‘abnormality’ in the blood.”
Headed to Stanford
As Rocha and his mother and father drive into the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital parking lot, they see the word “Stanford.” Reading the exclusive private university’s name on the sign makes the enormity of what’s ahead sink in.
“When we saw that, we were all in shock,” Andrade-Rocha says.
Inside the hospital, they’re directed to the Bass Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases. It’s the first time they’ve seen the name of the clinic and read the last word in the name: blood disease.
Alicia tries to reassure Rocha, and herself, it is just more labs. She looks at him and smiles.
It’s February now. Rocha’s health is faltering. The prescribed anti-inflammatories and painkillers do little to ease the pain. He can barely walk and is almost dragging his feet. He is pale and struggles to hold himself up.
Rocha knows the situation is more serious than his mom lets on. He doesn’t want her to worry.
“He says mom, ‘I need you to be prepared,’” recalls Andrade-Rocha. “He said, ‘I just don’t want you to get scared and I don’t want you to be shocked. I want you to be ready, okay? We need to be ready for whatever comes.’ ”
It’s not hard to see where Jose gets his love of people. His mom tells stories in conversations as if the people talking are the most important part – not the dates when things happened or the number of hours appointments lasted. She sees the big picture: Her child is sick.
Doctors review blood tests and measure the numbers of red cells, white cells and blood clotting platelets in his blood. They request a third test. The family is still waiting for an explanation for the pain that persists. On the way home from the hospital, their only reliable car breaks down on the freeway. The tow truck takes more than six hours to arrive, and the family waits.
“The following day we had to go back and we were trying to find a car. We were trying to find someone to lend us a car,” Andrade-Rocha says. “It was just one thing after another.”
This time, it’s not the regular blood test. The doctors have ordered a bone marrow biopsy and aspiration – which takes spongy tissue from inside Rocha’s hip bone for another set of tests and examinations. The test is used to diagnose and monitor blood and marrow diseases, including some cancers.
When Rocha wakes from anesthesia, the doctor asks to borrow his parents. Jose asks for the test results. The doctor wants to tell his parents first.
“I definitely knew it was a done deal,” Rocha says. “There was something wrong.”
The doctor does not want to say what she has to tell him.
“She kind of closes her eyes and she rests her hand on his hand and she says, ‘Jose, I’m sorry to inform you: You have leukemia,” Andrade-Rocha says.
There is silence for a moment. His mother and father let out a cry. Rocha asks if she is sure. This time, there is no extra test to take. She is sure.
“He took a deep breath and he said, ‘OK, I’m ready. When do I come back?,” recalls Andrade-Rocha. “And she says, ‘Jose, honey, you are not leaving the hospital. We need to start your treatment right away.’”
Look back next week for Part 2 of this story.
HOW TO HELP THE ROCHA FAMILY:
Gas for one roundtrip from Hollister to Palo Alto: $50-60
Monthly medication costs to the family after insurance: $500-600
Source: Jose Rocha’s mom
To make a donation, go here: http://www.gofundme.com/7ezx48
LEUKEMIA: is a cancer that begins in the bone marrow (where white blood cells are manufactured) and spreads into the blood and other organs. It affects the body’s white blood cells, which are in charge of fighting infections.
Source: United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
TIMELINE
December: Jose feels pain in his back. It seems to be deeper than the bone. Stretching and twisting doesn’t make it go away.
January: The pain is really noticeable. Jose tells his parents and goes to see his pediatrician. He cuts back on visits to the gym, going just twice instead of three times a day.
End of January: The pain continues. Jose goes to the gym just once a day.
Early February: Jose struggles to get out of bed.
Feb. 14: It is Valentine’s Day. Jose undergoes a bone marrow biopsy and aspiration. He is diagnosed with leukemia.
Feb. 16: Jose undergoes a central line surgery. Doctors install a catheter which allows chemotherapy, blood transfusions and other types of medicine to enter his body straight through the chest. Procedure complications send Jose to the pediatric intensive care unit because doctors worry he is at risk of bleeding internally.
Feb. 18: Chemotherapy begins.
Mid April / early May: Jose gets a 504 education plan, which gives him an alternative school plan so he can still work towards his high school diploma while he goes through chemotherapy.
June 6: Jose graduates from high school at San Benito High School and walks with his Baler class.
June 20: It’s the last day of his first phase of chemotherapy, called a consolidation. There will be two to three more consolidations ahead, depending on how Jose’s body responds to the treatments.
