Dacawi: Where's Mark?

WHATEVER happened to Mark Anthony Viray, the ailing Baguio boy who wanted to fly a plane?

The kid, now 12, is still in the thick of his fight against cancer, still dreaming of one day becoming a pilot. That's why he's back in class, in the fifth grade at the Quezon Elementary School he missed last school year to concentrate on his protracted battle.

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Doctors identified his foe in May, 2008, after Ernesto, his dad, had him checked up for a swelling on the side of his neck. It's Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer that accounts for five percent of the big C among children. It develops when cells of the lymph nodes, which are supposed to fight disease and infection as part of the body's immune system, turn abnormal and keep on dividing.

The doctors had recommended immediate chemotherapy. Unable to shoulder the costs, Ernesto, an off-and-on taxi and family driver, went knocking on doors and found one two months after the diagnosis.

Julian Chees, a distinguished Igorot karate teacher from Maligcong, Bontoc, Mt. Province now based in Germany, offered to bankroll the initial treatment. He treated the kid to pizza and had him take home some for his elder sister, Kristine, now 14.

Chees, a fifth-dan who earned the distinction of being the only non-German by birth to be drafted to the German national karate team, now heads over 50 gyms in southern Germany under the Japan Karate Association.

Years back, he and his students established Shoshin (Beginner's Mind) Kinderhilfe, a small humanitarian foundation, to be able to support ailing children here in Cordillera.

Other Samaritans also came in to work the boy's corner against a foe that doesn't choose its size. Among them was expatriate Freddie de Guzman, who grew up at DPS Compound here and is now an architect in Canada. Paul and Jenelyn Balanza, a Cordillera couple in Midland Michigan, also sent cash, a boy's vest and an airplane model.

To raise funds for Mark Anthony and other indigent patients, pupils at Brent School led by Noelle Sanidad held a dinner "trash-ion show" featuring clothes made out of cola caps, plastic and other recyclables. Businessmen friends of international car racing champion Carlos Anton then matched the kids' donations.

Folksingers led by newspaper columnist March Fianza organized a folk concert in tandem with the DPS barangay council headed by barangay head Narcisa Laguitan and councilman Boying de Guzman, Freddie's younger brother. Menchu Sarmiento, executive director of Philippine Airlines Foundation, said Mark Anthony could go on a simulated flight whenever he'd be ready.

Doctors at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center monitored the boy's treatment pro bono. With his chemotherapy completed, he was already on maintenance medicine and was well on the way to being cured.

The other week, however, a lump appeared on the right side of Mark's neck, prompting a CT Scan Shoshin Foundation shouldered last Wednesday afternoon. It confirmed a relapse, prompting doctors to recommend another round of chemotherapy, aside from another CT Scan, this time on the chest and abdomen. The two scans, costing P7,000 and P7,500 need to be done soonest. Ernesto, a 51-year old widower, will have to knock on doors again.