Sunday, Nov. 27, 2005 | 7:31 a.m.
Aurora Roach, a 12-year-old cancer survivor, is thankful for the most precious of all gifts during this season of giving thanks.
"I am thankful that I am still alive and I'm thankful to be with my family," Aurora said before helping her mother, Pilar, bake pumpkin pies that they delivered on Thanksgiving Day to cancer-stricken children at Sunrise Hospital, where Aurora spent the summer of 2004 undergoing chemotherapy treatments.
Aurora's father, Michael, a gaffer/electrician in the entertainment industry, says his thoughts are split between being grateful that his daughter is a cancer survivor and thinking about the families of children not so fortunate.
"We are so lucky and have so much to be thankful for," said Michael, 39. "I am thankful Aurora's cancer is in remission and that she is not in the hospital. But we cannot forget the families of the other children who were undergoing chemotherapy with Aurora. Three of those children have since died."
Aurora is the second oldest of the family's six children and the only girl. The trauma of watching their daughter suffer with Burkitt's lymphoma, a rare form of cancer, was "unbearable," said Pilar, 41.
"Our prayers were more profound and deep, and now we have a greater appreciation for everything," Pilar said. "We are so grateful for what so many people and organizations have done for us, especially the Candlelighters. They took such a burden off of us."
Since it was founded in 1978, Candlelighters of Southern Nevada has helped more than 1,500 families with children in various stages of cancer with financial assistance, counseling, education and other vital services.
"There absolutely are happy endings sometimes," said Candlelighters Director of Operations Landa York, who lost her son Jason to leukemia.
"We try to instill in every parent that every day their child is alive is a new day where a new drug or a new treatment could come along."
National statistics support such optimism.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, 79 percent of children under age 15 who have cancer now live five years or longer. Thirty years ago, only 56 percent of cancer-stricken children under age 15 lived five years or more, the agency said.
Such promising statistics, however, mean little to parents given the news.
"I was devastated -- it was the most terrible news," Pilar said. "The only two people we knew then who had cancer died."
A neighborhood woman with seven children died of breast cancer and Aurora's aunt had colon cancer.
That naturally concerned Aurora's brothers -- Willy, 14; Jacob, 11; Alex, 9; David, 7, and Caleb, 4.
"The first question her brothers asked me was, 'Is Aurora going to die?' " Pilar said. "Everything was just so overwhelming."
Aurora was diagnosed with Burkitt's just after Independence Day 2004, when flu-like symptoms did not go away. Doctors found an inoperable baseball-sized tumor lodged in her intestines. A biopsy confirmed it was Burkitt's, a disease so rare that it produces only about 300 new cases a year in the United States.
So aggressive is the disease that, without chemotherapy treatments to disintegrate tumors, they can double in size every two days, Michael said.
After undergoing five intense chemotherapy sessions in four months, Aurora was released from the hospital just before last Thanksgiving. Still quite ill from the medication and devastated over losing all of her waist-length blond hair because of chemotherapy, Aurora was not ready to enjoy a feast.
This year was different, however, with Aurora wanting a big family celebration. Her shoulder-length hair now streaked with pink dye, a beaming Aurora said she cannot wait to go on a Christmas shopping spree for new clothes.
And she and her parents say they will work to help other stricken families.
Pilar now serves as one of about 100 volunteers for Candlelighters, which has six paid staff members and spends 90 cents of every dollar raised to provide goods and services -- including toys, holiday parties, food vouchers and travel expenses for specialized treatments -- for families of children with cancer.
Candlelighters currently is running its holiday adopt-a-family program, in which the public can provide support for needy families. Those interested can call the Candlelighters at 737-1919.
Aurora has taken the Candlelighters' message of optimism to heart. She advises other youngsters diagnosed with cancer that there is hope.
"Always be positive," she said. "Never give up."
Ed Koch can be reached at 259-4090 or at [email protected].
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