LOVELOCK - Laughing and running at top speed around the park, a young leukemia victim seemed to know he was the center of attention during Sunday's "Walk for Louie." Around him, locals trudged laps around the park to earn to show their support for Louie Gutierrez and his family.
Friends and visitors could hardly keep up with the boy who had the energy and attitude of any two-year-old as he raced around the park. His mother Coco Gutierrez said her son's challenging behavior is almost back to normal since the start of his medical treatments, although some days are better than others. Before his diagnosis of lymphoblastic leukemia in August, Louie had become lethargic and his body was covered with bruises from head to toe, she said.
Even with his remarkable recovery and the disease in remission, Louie still faces many difficult and costly medical procedures before he is cured. After his diagnosis, Coco said her son was hospitalized for ten days for extensive tests and immediate treatments. Now, the family must return to Renown Medical Center in Reno every ten days for chemotherapy sessions and medications to reduce the treatment's sickening side effects.
"In the phase we're in now, it consists of an intravenous form so he has to sit there for about 20 minutes and it gets fed into his chest," Coco said. "In previous treatments, he was getting spinal taps. Every Friday, after he was put to sleep, they would give him the chemotherapy through his spine. The main reason was to make sure the leukemia didn't get into his spinal fluid and go to his brain."
In the next treatment phase, Louie must undergo chemotherapy at least four times per week, his mother said.
"We'll stay at the Ronald McDonald House," Coco said. "They want him close to the hospital in case he gets feverish or gets too sick - we're just right there."
Gutierrez said she isn't sure how much of the boy's medical costs will be covered by their health insurance. Fortunately, both she and her husband Marcos Gutierrez have medical insurance through their full-time jobs at Safeway and the Coeur Rochester mine.
"His bone marrow biopsy, when we finally got that bill, that's just from the pathologist, that's not even what the hospital's charging us, it was $2,500 and some change," she said. "We still have two more of those to go and two more bills to come in. That's almost $10,000 in just the three bills that I know are coming."
Gutierrez said she hasn't received the bill for Louie's first ten days in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Renown but she knows from previous billing breakdowns that it could cost up to a few thousand dollars per day.
After inpatient treatments are complete, Louie will be treated at home for three years with "maintenance" chemotherapy and will not be considered cured of the disease until ten years have elapsed, Gutierrez said.
The Northern Nevada Children's Cancer Society and the American Cancer Society are helping with travel costs.
"They (NNCCS) are just a phenomenal foundation, they really are," she said. "I don't know the total amount but they've given us hundred-dollar gas cards. At $4.18 a gallon (of gasoline), it adds up."
Sunday's fundraiser collected $115 for Louie and his family according to event organizer Valaree Olivas. More
important than money was the community's concern, friendship and support, Gutierrez said.
"The community's support makes us feel so blessed and we can't thank them enough," she said. "We've had cards in the mail and a quilt was made for Louie. People showing that they care means more than they will ever know."
Lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) causes abnormal white blood cells to crowd out normal white blood cells, red blood cells and blood platelets. Normal white blood cells are needed to fight infection. For children, the overall survival rate after chemotherapy is nearly 80 percent, according to the website www.webmd.com.
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