For 15 months, he was in a Honolulu hospital and had to be fed through a tube inserted through a small incision in the abdomen into the stomach.
“I’ve gone through hell for 17 months,” said Bo, a ninth grade student at Saipan Southern High School and a brain cancer survivor at the age of 14.
In an interview on Saturday at their house in Koblerville, I asked him how he was feeling.
“Sometimes I feel weak, but I’m getting better,” he said.
His mother, Vicky Tudela Guerrero, said during the first six months of Bo’s ordeal, “I thought I was the one getting sick. But I had to be strong for him. I told him that we’d do it together, that we wouldn’t give up and wouldn’t give in to despair. We didn’t. I’m proud of my boy.”
“The whole time,” Bo said, “my mother was there with me — she never left me.”
Symptoms
Some two years ago, when Bo vomited after a meal, his mother thought it was because of jet lag.
“He and his dad just came from the states and Japan and it was a long trip,” Vicky said. “But he threw up again on the next day and complained of terrible, migraine-like headaches and his sense of balance was also off so we brought him to a local clinic. They couldn’t find out what was wrong with him. I had to seek another medical opinion and consulted Dr. Norma Ada. She immediately knew what was the problem. They did a CAT scan on him at [the Commonwealth Health Center] and they found a small growth in his brain. We were told to go to Guam for an MRI.”
The magnetic resonance imaging process for Bo started at 9:30 a.m. and ended at 6 p.m.
“I called Dr. Ada and asked her what was going on, and she told me to talk to my husband, so I did and that’s when I learned that my Angel had to leave Guam immediately and fly to Hawaii,” Vicky said. “There was no time to come back to Saipan to pack our things. We had to leave right away.”
Bo had a tumor on the back of his brain — medulloblastoma — and it was already blocking drainage of the cerebral spinal fluid, causing massive headaches.
“It was like someone was bashing my head,” Bo recalled. “It was like a force pushing hard on my head.”
The long plane ride to Hawaii made the pain unbearable.
“His spine was also hurting — I thought I was going to lose him,” his mother said.
They arrived in Hawaii on the evening of Aug. 23, 2007 and Bo was admitted to Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women & Children.
“When we got there I told the doctors to wait for his dad because I just couldn’t handle it,” Vicky said.
Under the knife
To remove his tumor, Bo had to undergo surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy. His first operation took five and a half hours.
“They had to install a shunt to drain the fluid from his brain,” Bo’s father, Joseph, said. “It’s a titanium tube running from the brain under the skin to the abdomen.”
“I was clueless — I didn’t know what was happening to me,” Bo said. “What’s going on? I asked. They said, ‘You have cancer.’ I said, ‘What?’ I was really shocked.”
“I asked the doctor, ‘why?’ ” said Vicky. “What caused it? They don’t know, except that it sometimes happens to young males 8 to 18 years old.”
Top of the line
Bo and his family appreciated the first class medical treatment provided by Kapi’olani.
“It was very good,” he said. “They really understand what you’re going through. They have program for patients like me that allows us to get away from all the sickness — it takes your mind out of the hospital.”
During his treatment, he lost 26 pounds and could barely walk. He still has burn marks on the back of his head and spine.
“He was so skinny and the chemo and radiation discolored his body,” said Vicky, a Legislative Bureau staffer.
The treatment was expensive — “big time,” she said. “I was on leave without pay. We received $20 a day from the medical referral office, and even though everything’s expensive in Honolulu my son and I managed. I’m really grateful to Aetna Insurance,” which paid 80 percent of the total cost.
Speed bump
In Hawaii, Bo lost three friends he met in the hospital, cancer patients like him.
“Once of them was our neighbor here [in Koblerville]; she was 16. The other was a five-year-old Chuukese. And the third was a 16-year-old Hawaiian. He was on his own. They all had leukemia.”
But through it all Bo remained optimistic.
“If I’ve to say anything to other cancer patients it’s this: Always have hope. It made me healthy.”
He paused. “I read about this guy, 32 years old, a cancer patient in Hawaii who won a 500-meter bike race. He says cancer is just a speed bump in the road of life. He’s right.”
“It was hard,” Vicky said. “Man, it was hard. Sometimes I had to hide in the bathroom just to cry my lungs out. But I had to be strong for him. I had to be positive.”
In Hawaii, Bo became an inspiration for other cancer patients, especially those from the CNMI.
“There were patients who didn’t want to go through an operation and Bo would speak to them and show them his scars,” Vicky said. ‘I went through five operations, and if I can do it, you can do it,’ he told them. And one of the patients, a lady, said ‘OK, I’m now ready to have my heart surgery.’ And she’s fine now.”
Make a wish
In Dec. 2007, the Make a Wish Foundation of Honolulu asked Bo if he wanted a wish.
“They asked if he wanted to go to Disneyland, meet a sports star or any other celebrity,” Vicky said. “He asked for $6,000. When they asked him why, he said he wanted to give each of his elder sisters $2,000 because they’ve kids. The lady from the foundation had to run out of the room because she was crying.”
The foundation, however, could only grant a wish that will directly benefit the child.
“So he decided to go to Wal-Mart, his favorite store, and buy computer games, a laptop with a printer, a digital camera and some sports equipment. He said although he can’t play sports at least he can still wear a baseball glove.”
Home again
Bo returned to Saipan last December. “I was here for the holidays with my brothers and sisters,” he said. “It was fun.”
“The tumor’s gone,” Vicky said. “He’s way better now.”
But Bo is still taking medicines — one for his kidney and blood pressure, one to protect him from viruses and the other is to stimulate his appetite.
An athletic student who used to play volleyball, basketball and baseball, Bo still has to use a cane to walk and will have to undergo another operation in March.
“It’s for his eyes,” his mother said. “He has double vision but the doctors will fix it.”
Besides superb healthcare and positive thinking, prayer helps a lot, too, Bo said.
“We’ll need more prayers,” his mother said. “My son was just confirmed last week. Bishop [Tomas A. Camacho] wanted him confirmed before he goes back to Hawaii, and we invited the other former patients from Honolulu. They joked that Bo had received all the sacraments already — except matrimony.”
“You got to be positive, always,” Bo said. “You never give up. If you really want something, you’ve got to fight for it. Be in it to win it.”
