Despite cancer, children enjoy day set aside for them

Tariq Malik

NEWPORT BEACH - Orange County children waging a daily war against the

cancer afflicting them set aside their sickness Sunday for a day of fun.

About 100 children, ranging from infants to young adults, and their

families packed into a tent at the Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort for a

Dancin’ Cowpokes celebration sponsored by the American Cancer Society’s

Cattle Baron’s League. There, they enjoyed several activities including

swing dancing, face painting and sliding.

“I like Minnie Mouse and she’s here,” said 4-year-old Vanessa Villan

of Costa Mesa, as she sat in her mother’s lap cradling a Barbie doll.

Her mother, Faye Villan, said doctors found a cancerous lump in

Vanessa’s stomach shortly after she was born, and tracked it into her

liver. She has been in remission for the last two years.

Huntington Beach resident Carrie Ortiz watched as her son, Davis, 2,

ran around in circles, waving a balloon sword.

“He’s as excited as if he were in Disneyland,” she said, adding that

the event is the first time since the onset of cancer in her son that

he’s been able to go out among people. “And it’s important that he spends

time with people, even if he has a medicine tube in his chest.”

The Cattle Baron’s League is a local volunteer group within the

American Cancer Society that has raised about $1.1 million for cancer

research and patient services since its inception two years ago. During

last year’s fund-raising ball, attendees pledged the $15,000 necessary for Sunday’s celebration in about two minutes.

“This is really a day for child cancer patients who have survived to

spend a day of joy, outside the hospital,” said Newport Beach resident

Sandi Jackson, herself a cancer survivor and one of the event’s

organizers. “We’re just so excited that we could get this together.”

Katie Darnell, a 17-year-old cancer survivor from Princeton, Ky., was

also excited.

Darnell was diagnosed with cancer in 1996, and watched it move from

her pituitary gland to her optic nerve and ultimately into her brain.

Despite losing her hair repeatedly from chemotherapy treatments,

suffering hearing loss and going legally blind, Darnell has become an

inspiration to many parents of cancer-stricken children, especially now

as she once again prepares to face a fourth bout with the disease.

“We really need events like this one because kids miss so much when

they get sick so young,” she said. “You can’t go to school, play sports

and instead of talking abut style and trends with your friends, you talk

about needles and medicines.”

Though still a teenager, Darnell said she feels 35, and said her body,

with its loss of sight and some hearing, seems 65.

“When you offer a day and a place where kids with cancer can get out

of the hospital, and play with others like them, it makes them feel

special,” Darnell added. “This is something they can go to that no one

else can, finally something they can do.”

Karen Sullivan, president of the Orange County Federation for Oncology

Children and Family, lauded the celebration’s emphasis on family rather

than cancer patients themselves.

“When a child has cancer, it affects the whole family, and siblings

are sometimes forgotten,” she said.

Sullivan’s 12-year-old daughter, Mary, has leukemia and is in

remission and attending a wedding, but her three older children, Jamie,

15, Mike, 16, and Chris, 18, attended Sunday’s event with her.

Joyce Weiss, chairwoman of the Cattle Baron’s League, said the group

hopes to make the children’s celebration an annual event and invite

cancer patients and their families year after year.

“This is something they’ll remember forever, and hopefully, forever

will be a long time,” she added.