Kerry's Magana's 15 years in photos

Kerry Magana

04-22-1993

11-13-2008

Kerry passed away this morning. She is in a better place this morning. Her body couldn't continue anymore. They called Kerry the butterfly and I think she is flying right now. Most of you know her because I've told you about her but if you would've had the opportunity to meet her you would have been impressed with her. She was beautiful, she was witty, and she was knowledgable about things. She told me one day while we were in Kaylee's room that God wouldn't give her more than she could handle. Kerry was right.




The last time I spoke with Kerry I told her I would throw a party for her. We would do it Latina style. Bands, food, and a fiesta. Her favorite band agreed to play and I was going to ask Fred Cannon at the Uptown Theatre if he would provide the stage. That night there must have been 20 people packed around and Kerry announced to the room "Michael Quijas is going to have a party for me!" That was my last night with her, the last night I talked and hugged her.





I am not sad right now. I feel relief she isn't in pain, on a respirator, or in a coma. She is with God and she is in paradise. I feel for the family but I'm glad grandma is here to help her cope with this horrible loss. Kiss your kids today and hug them tight. Sickness isn't anything we think we are going to have to deal with. It happens to others but I'm here to tell you that it can happen and it does happen. Thank you for the prayers and thank you for listening to me about my friend Kerry Magana.

We succeeded on our part...

I am happy to announce that we successfully got Kerry's grandma here Thursday night. Her flight came in around 7:30 pm and the family was brought to tears when they saw her. I can't begin to tell you how happy I was. It was a conclusion to the countless hours of work we put in to get the family the support they needed at the hospital and at home.

"A Girls Night Out Limo" sent a car to pick up the family so they could meet grandma at the airport. Dan Stewart donated his time to drive the car for the family. None of the occupants had ever been in such a vehicle and it was special to see them get there in comfort and style. I was invited to ride but opted to follow in my car. I wanted them to be at ease and at peace.

We also started construction on their kitchen Thursday. To say I started the construction would be an absolute lie, I'm not engineered or skilled to do any kind of construction but found resources to help. Christina Jasso, who has become such an important part of the Magana family, got her husband to do the tile, plumbing, and electrical work. The Jasso's are awesome.

Laton Crane, the owner of Calloway Construction, was kind enough to hang the cabinets at the last minute for me. Ed Woods, an electrician and parent of a cancer survivor, has also agreed to go to the house to hang new lighting fixtures. We just need a person to glue the granite tops and cut a hole for the kitchen sink in the granite. So if any of you know anyone who does that kind of work please let me know. My Thursday was very busy. I rounded up construction crews, gave a speech, and ended my day at the airport. It was one of the most fulfilling days I've ever had.

The kindness from everyone has been rewarding to me. It has renewed my faith in other people. Seriously, I have to say that I would have probably not noticed the kind acts nor would I participate in such kindness if not for the sickness. I feel comfortable to say that I was self absorbed before this illness. In the past I would have given you a ride to the hospital if you needed it but would have driven off at the first opportunity. Today I'd walk you in, wait with you, and make you comfortable! Things have a way of changing you.

I titled this "We succeeded in our part..." now it's left in God's hands. Say a prayer for this tough child.

Thank you KMBC 9...

Grandma: Part 3 The Conclusion

Kerry's grandma finally received a green light from the U.S. to enter the country. We have been told that all the paper work is done and waiting for her at the U.S. Consulate in Honduras. We are grateful. It took some time but it appears that it worked out, we just need to get her here quickly. Kerry isn't doing so well.

Kerry has been on a ventilator and her situation hasn't improved. The doctors told Claudia that she needs to get better soon or problems could occur. So I ask everyone to say a prayer for this young girl. I went to see her today and she is sick. He poor little body is so swollen. I hardly recognized her. A drastic change from last week. I wish I would have taken a picture with here months ago when she was feeling healthy. I'll just wait until she gets healthy again I guess. My connection with the family is solid and I feel they appreciate me and the effort I've put into helping them get their grandmother/mother here.

It must have been in March or April when Claudia told me she needed help. That was when I decided I would try to help Claudia bring her mother here from Honduras. It sounded easy but the reality is there's so many laws, rules, and regulations that getting anything done is a toss up. Although I tapped resources and worked hard for the family, it was Christina Jasso who did the paper work and followed up. It would have never happened if it wasn't for Jasso.

Today I went by First Watch and grabbed Claudia a cheese omelet, sausage, and a biscuit. When I arrived at CMH the waiting room was packed. Kerry's family and friends were gathered there. Christina Jasso was taking one person at a time back to Kerry's room. She was giving Claudia a break. Her kindness is so inspiring. I think she has to be tired too. This fight has consumed her and she's become attached to Kerry and the family.

The best advice I could give anyone who might face a tough battle with sickness is find the good in the situation. This journey with Kerry has opened my eyes to the random kindness of strangers. The outpouring of support from people who have never met her is unbelievable. The experience has renewed my faith in my fellow man/woman. I was blessed with the opportunity to see good things happen in the midst of an ugly thing called cancer.

I'm done writing about Kerry and her family. It's time for them to move forward privately. My objective was to get a Visa for the grandmother and it looks like we may have succeeded. Since I'm done with my part I am going to concentrate on my family now. For those of you who wonder why I've been writing so much about the family, it was because they needed their story told so others would intervene and help at this desperate time. It worked. I hope that Kerry wins her battle and I encourage everyone to say a prayer for this beautiful child.

Not alone anymore...

I want to tell everyone that Kerry Magana is getting assisted in the Visa campaign from Ted Kennedy and his office. It seems that Mr. Kennedy is part of an oversight committee that monitors immigration issues and this is one of the things, Kerry's situation, that they can help cut through the bureaucratic red tape and intervene. Thank you Mr. Kennedy.

The things that have happened since all this started have been incredible. The outpouring of support has been overwhelming. The person responsible is Christina Jasso from the Guadalupe Center in KC. She took this case on as any other but has moved from a social worker to become part of the Magana family. I joke with her almost daily that if ever become sick or in need of an advocate that she's my girl.

Christina stays at the hospital when she needs to. She delivers food and support daily. I'm sure her family has considered posting her picture on milk containers because she is always helping this family in moments of crisis. Recently there has been many moments.

I believe that it's a blessing when one gets to see acts of kindness first hand. This has truly been a blessing to me. We go through life so often consumed with our own world and seldom take up the cause of our fellow human beings. This is unfortunate because there are so many of our neighbors who need help, not just a handout. I have had my share of downs and I have been lucky to have the right people or person come to my rescue.

So this weekend, this month, or this year I ask you to keep an eye open for someone who needs your help. It might be someone fighting cancer, someone laid off from a job who needs some networking, or a neighbor that needs a ride to work to feed his or her family. For me it was a family battling sickness alone that put me in the mode. Alone. No one should have to do it alone. I have enough resources for the both of us.

This situation has been a growing experience for me. It has led me to new people, new door steps, and a new way of thinking. I encourage everyone to step out of that comfort zone, that routine and experience the incredible feeling you get when you make a difference. I can't say what will happen with this case, but I do know that this mother of a very sick child is not alone anymore. That might be her blessing, knowing she's not alone anymore!

Red tape ties up Honduran grandmother’s attempt to visit teen with cancer

By MARY SANCHEZ
The Kansas City Star

If Jenesis Magana could cure cancer, she most surely would.
She’d take her background as a Kauffman scholar, her fascination with biology, her dedication to the robotics squad and figure out a thing or two. For now, though, she’s marching her tiny frame through the curvy corridors of Children’s Mercy Hospital.
Her older sister, 15-year-old Kerry Magana, is lying sedated on a ventilator in the intensive care unit. Kerry has acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Her body is rejecting the bone marrow doctors injected in September.
And Jenesis is angry. At anyone or anything having to do with her sister’s illness. She even questions medical procedures done or not done.
“I watch those TV shows,” Jenesis says. “There is always one doctor who ” disagrees with all the others and says, ‘No, I think it is this.’
Jenesis makes the remark as a statement. But it is a plea. Where is that magic doctor who will save her sister’s life?
I have no words to explain that her sister’s cancer may not be stopped, no matter how brilliant the doctor. She knows anyway.
Jenesis understands a lot for a 13-year-old. She knows why I’m there, the newspaper lady her mother, social workers and a family friend were told to call because their best bet for getting her grandmother here from Honduras is to embarrass the government into doing the right thing.
This part makes no sense to Jenesis. Or me.

Staffers with Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and Sen. Kit Bond, a public policy official with the National Council of La Raza, even connections inside the highest levels of the Department of Homeland Security — all said they would try to help. Ultimately, everyone offered the same advice: Get a splashy newspaper story done.

Kerry and Jenesis’ mother was born in Honduras and is now a legal permanent resident of the U.S. She has repeatedly applied for a visitor’s visa so her mother can come help the family, the last time with the help of a local immigration attorney. The doctors at the hospital and social workers have written letters of support to the U.S. Embassy in Honduras.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has told her that the grandmother didn’t have enough money in her bank account, then that she had too much, another time she was told she had reapplied too soon after a denial. The last time she was turned away without an explanation.
“I want my mother to see her grandchild while she is still alive,” Claudia Cabrera says, in a rare moment of raising her voice. “What do they want, her to die first?”

A single mother, twice widowed, Cabrera is exhausted and anemic. She has passed out twice at the hospital where her daughter has been since Aug. 25.

Nightly she covers herself in a long yellow sterile gown, plastic gloves and a mask to tend to her daughter, changing bedclothes and diapers regularly because of the extreme diarrhea, keeping Kerry’s open sores covered with ointment, begging her to stop fighting the ventilator.

Needless to say, I believe in the power of the printed word. And government bureaucracy is nothing new. Nor are backlogs and the complicated workings of the nation’s immigration procedures. If something is wrong with the visa application, the family needs to be told.

Ridicule by media should not be necessary to restart government cogs. That’s offensive when the issue is bureaucratic. It’s cruel when a young girl’s life may be ending.

When she rises to anger about her situation, Cabrera believes if she were wealthy, she would be able to secure the visa.

Well-placed connections have not helped. Michael Quijas befriended the family after meeting them through his daughter, who was diagnosed with the same type of cancer but is in remission now.

Quijas graduated from Shawnee Mission North High School at the same time as Julie Myers, now head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He has tried to call her office, seeking advice or intervention.

“It’s so frustrating because we’ve tried everything,” he said.

Quijas is among those told that multiple stories done by Kansas City Hispanic News were nice, but not enough. Not even the segments by KMBC-TV reporter Maria Antonia would do the trick. Quijas helped package the stories, along with photos from Kerry’s 15th birthday quinceanera by the Dream Factory, to send along with medical documentation and hundreds of dollars in fees for the latest application — an expedited visa.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says such a visa “usually takes 90 to 120 days from the date of this receipt for us to process this type of case.”

So, at a time when most children her age are being tucked into bed, Jenesis is pacing the halls with me, unloading her frustration. Upstairs, her mother is curled into a ball, sobbing. She has just been told that the ventilator isn’t helping the way doctors had hoped.

Earlier, her mother had taken a pink cell phone from her bag. She tried to show that day’s photo of Kerry to Jenesis, a visual update on her sister’s condition.

Jenesis sharply turned her head away, buried her face under the crook of her arm and began to cry. She hasn’t entered Kerry’s room for a week.

And she doesn’t need a photo to understand what is happening.

Start with a prayer.

I went to see Kerry Magana today. I brought lunch to her mother and got to spend some time with Kerry. She is very sick and depends on a ventilator to bring oxygen to her lungs. She is fighting and I ask everyone to say a prayer for her. We have a Kansas City Star article coming out this Monday. If you get a chance please pick up a copy and look for the Mary Sanchez column.



It is hard to comprehend how tiring it must be her mother. Sickness can wear you out just because of the sickness but throw in that Claudia has been there at CMH for 2 months straight. Kerry is in Intensive Care so what comfort Claudia had in the Bone Marrow floor disappeared when they moved Kerry. Claudia has to sleep with a mask, gloves, and sterile bib. The sounds and beeps from all the machinery would keep anyone awake but toss in that you have to make sure the oxygen mask stays on Kerry's face. So tough.



Claudia has to be there 24/7 so she hasn't worked. She has to feed herself while she is there. That food costs money and I know it can add up quickly. So sad. I can't believe that no one has offered her some sort of food voucher at the hospital. Another tough element in all of this is that Kerry's 13 yr-old sister is having to survive by herself. This means eating alone if her brother is working. She is 13 yrs-old and needs things like all other kids her age. Her shoes have went bad and I know that there's no money for shoes. This young child is frequently at the hospital with her mother and often wants to eat. Her mom doesn't always have the money to feed both her and her daughter. I couldn't imagine. How much can one person take?



It is so easy to listen to these stories and tune it out. If I had to do this alone I would break. If you only knew how stressful it is to spend weeks or in this case, months in the hospital. Those of us who had partners it was still hard as hell. To fight alone is unimaginable. The heartbreak, the financial burden, the fright!



Someday I hope I can advocate for families like Kerry's. It is my calling. I hope someday that I can make enough money in business to free me up to do these things. If anyone can help this mother in any way please do so. Start with a prayer.

Please include Kerry...

I want to ask everyone to pray for Kerry Magana. Kerry is having a difficult time right now and can use prayer. Her fight is tough right now and we need her to get through the next couple of days and a helping hand from God would and will be nice.

I have been keeping my distance from the hospital because it is emotional for me. We spent so much time there last year fighting major sickness that I hate to see hurting. We were there yesterday for Kaylee's treatments and I couldn't make my way up to see Kerry. I have to do my part for her outside the hospital. I work better outside the institution than inside.

Kaylee is feeling sore from her spinal tap. Her little back is hurting from the procedure. Her taste buds are wacky from the chemo she has to take. Kaylee does chemo everyday at home but travels to the hospital to get an ugly dose of something called methatrexate once a month. Kaylee never complains.

We were talking earlier about Kerry Magana. When we started our fight at CMH Kerry was a patient that we looked at as a kid on the fast track to recovery. To see her now makes you realize that this disease is totally unpredictable. I hope she doesn't suffer with this sickness to much longer. I want the health she deserves to return. I want her bone marrow transplant to be successful and I'd like to see her back to school.

If you want to help a beautiful kid, a kid who could be yours or mine, say a quick little prayer for her. When we were down and anyone asked if there was something I needed, I quickly responded that a prayer would be nice. So tonight I ask you to do the same for my friend Kerry Magana.

KMBC 9 News...

Maria Antonia traveled to Children's Mercy Hospital today and interviewed Kerry. It is scheduled for tomorrow. I do not know what time but keep your eyes open for it. I was not included in the piece. I had my gel in, teeth flossed, and my shirt ironed but it didn't matter. It was all about Kerry.

I am so proud of Kerry and her mother. Kerry is not feeling well so everyone had a mask on. She wasn't bothered by it. Her mother Claudia had her hair done and was excited. I was in and out because Kaylee was getting treatments. We were at the hospital all day. It was boring. We sat for hours waiting for our spinal tap. Well I didn't get a spinal tap but you know what I mean.

I want to thank everyone for their input on how to help. I want to also thank Randy and Stacy Sharp for actually getting this going. If it wasn't for you and your emails I might not have started this campaign. I want everyone to know that sometimes we all need help. My voice is strong enough for Kaylee and Kerry. I just want comfort for my kid and Kerry. I can't imagine Kerry needing something and someone not being there for her. I can't save the world but I can start with a beautiful little girl named Kerry Magana!

Grandma: Part 1

Dear Representative Cleaver,
My name is Michael Quijas. I am a proud father of a young 15 yr-old girl who is fighting cancer, leukemia. We were diagnosed on June 21, 2007. This last year was very hard and unpredictable. We have been fighting for our daughter's health and have had to dig dip inside to get through certain days. We were blessed with a strong family, with friends, and community that rallied behind us.

Along our journey we made friends with other families battling similar sickness in their kids. I write you tonight about one mother in particular, a mother that is struggling to keep her family afloat. Her name is Claudia and her beautiful daughter's name is Kerry Magana. Claudia is a single mother with 3 kids. She has no family or friends to help her. Until recently she had been riding the bus to work, she has walked to Children's Mercy Hospital from East KC, and she has had to let her sick daughter ride the bus alone to get her chemo in the clinic. Since Claudia is the only provider in the home she is forced to leave Kerry daily so she can work to keep a roof over the family's head. She needs help, she needs your help.

Kerry's grandmother lives in Honduras and has tried unsuccessfully to get a Visa to come stay with the family until Kerry's bone marrow transplant is complete. They deemed Kerry's case not an emergency. As a father who has a child battling the same disease, it is an emergency. This little girl is fighting alone daily with no one to over see her taking her meds, (with blood disease you could sleep all day and not even know it), the bone marrow transplant requires that this little girl stay hospitalized for 6-8 weeks following the procedure. There needs to be someone there with her. Right now Claudia has to be at the hospital every Wednesday to sign off on the chemotherapy that Kerry receives. She is at risk of losing her job due to the demands of this disease. She needs someone to help her, someone like her mother, someone to bring comfort and assistance like only a mother can. As my Congressman, as a Congressman who's a father, a grandfather I ask you to please lend your help, your hand in saving this beautiful little girl.

We need a Humanitarian Visa for this little girl's Grandmother. Please help me help them. The Guadalupe Center has been blown away by this Mother's story and is requesting an application from Mr. Ruiz. Please take a look at this application and let us know what can be done through your office/resources.

I own a TV channel - InAd TV - that plays Kansas City's top restaurants, nightclubs, and entertainment venues (The Power & Light/KC Live). If I can ever help with a cause, an event, or a campaign please know I'm here for you! Please give me a call or an email and I can give you more details or info regarding Kerry Magana.

I'm a blessed man because I can provide my family with the tools, resources, and time needed to fight this thing as comfortably as possible. I'm blessed that I get to have my wife next to my daughter daily as we fight our sickness. My wife and I both have the luxury to rub our daughter's back as she gets so sick. Imagine if you were a parent and couldn't be there for your child. I only hope we can help because if by chance this little girl passes away I don't want this mother to have any regrets! I want grandma here so she can rub the back if mom has to work.

At first I thought why would God give this to us. But now I know. He gave me this so I might help others. I just created a non-profit called - 10 Kids Insured - that will insure children lacking health care in programs such as Operation Breakthrough and Guadalupe Center. What I thought was a curse has turned into a blessing! Please help Kerry Magana and her mother. They are legal residents of the US and they need some representation. Thank you Mr. Cleaver.

Thank you,
Michael Quijas
816.651.9471
michael@inadtv.com
www.inadtv.com

Kerry Full of Life and Faith

Meet Kerry Magaña, a typical 14-year-old young girl with lots of friends and siblings. Once, Magaña was more concerned with sibling rivalries and the intrigues and plays of her circle of close friends. She experimented with mascara and nurtured her long black hair. But that changed when she was diagnosed with ALL Leukemia in the fall of 2006. Now her pixie good looks and stature belie the tallness of her spirit.She had a relapse in December of 2007 and now the family faces a life and death situation. Doctors say that she has a 20 percent chance of survival given an appropriate bone marrow donor match, a possibility made difficult by the paucity of Hispanic and Latino registered donors. On Sunday, February 17, a three-hour bone marrow drive brought possible donors to Bales Baptist Church in the Northeast area of the city.Twenty-three people turned out despite the winter weather conditions to register as possible donors. Magaña was happy that people did come out despite the bad weather. “It is a little disappointing that more didn’t come but we are planning on having another donor drive. My goal is to get more people involved. I want to get the message out to everybody to get registered. It is not just for me but for a lot of other kids that need it too.”Even though she is fighting leukemia, Magaña does not dwell on her sickness. Instead her focus is on the other children that are in the hospital sick with leukemia or other types of cancer. “Before they told me I had cancer, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the fact that other kids had cancer. It has opened a lot of things up. I see things differently. Just go to the hospital. There are lots and lots of kids and adults that are living with it and not a lot of people pay attention to it.”“My daughter has a big heart,” said Claudia Sabrera “She wants to help others and she goes to the hospital to visit the other children there. She is like a butterfly, she goes from room to room visiting and asking each one how they are. This is her way of showing her love for the people in the hospital.” Knowing that she would be losing her hair during her chemotherapy treatments, Magaña decided to cut her hair before the treatments so she could donate it for wigs for other children. Magaña donated 13 inches of hair and her sister Genesis donated 11 inches.She was disappointed by the reactions of some of her peers and struggles with the questions other children posed to her about why is she bald. “It hurts, even today it still hurts. I have people ask me if I am a boy or a girl. I was really sad when I lost my hair,” recalled Magaña.She feels that God has given her this disease for a purpose. She told Hispanic News that she thinks her purpose is to educate the Latino community about what a bone marrow donor is and how they can get registered in order to help others.Her mother understands how other Hispanics feel when they are asked to donate. “We don’t know what it means by bone marrow transplant. Hispanics believe that they are going to pull out a piece of bone to transplant. They believe they will be handicapped. … They think that if they do this they will die, but we will live. We do not have enough information to know what the transplant is about. The fight does not stop here. We will work hard to get the word out that my daughter needs a transplant. If God is willing he will send me a person who will help my daughter fight this disease,” said Sabrera.Potential donors must be between the ages of 18 and 60 years old and meet health guidelines. The screening test costs $52 and insurance does not cover the procedure. A small blood sample or swab of cheek cells is taken and tested to determine the donor’s tissue type. Potential donors also complete a brief health questionnaire and sign a consent form to have their tissue type listed on the Registry.Because tissue type is inherited, patients are likely to match someone of their same race and ethnicity. There is a need to recruit donors who are Hispanic/Latino, African American, American Indian, Alaska Naïve, Asian, Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders.“We have to get people to understand the importance of becoming a bone marrow donor,” said Danielle Wilson, a volunteer at the registry desk. Wilson herself is a recipient of bone marrow and is happy that a person thought enough to register and help someone in need.“My donor is a Hispanic male who lives in Texas. I am overjoyed that somebody thought well enough to give of themselves. He said it was a painless process and he would do it all over again for somebody in need,” said Wilson.She knows the tough road that is ahead for Magaña but told Hispanic News that she will be there to help her in any way that she can. Before the leukemia struck her body, Magaña was a typical teenager, chatting with friends on the telephone, she liked to dance, she did her homework and she would help her mother around the house.“She came down with a fever and I took care of her in the house for a week but it would not go away. I did not imagine the worst. I took her to the doctor imagining that it was an infection. He advised me to take her in by Friday of that week if her fever did not go away. Her fever was so high when I took her to the doctor that they thought it was pneumonia and they gave her a pill treatment for five days,” said Sabrera.Kerry’s fever continued and after following back and forth with the doctor she was finally told to take her daughter to the hospital for tests. They ran tests and sent her home but had them come back the following day for the test results.Sabrera was unprepared for the news that she received as she sat on the bed next to her daughter. “It was like they were tearing my heart out. I felt crazy and I did not know what to do. It was such a wrenching pain, like your heart is being torn out slowly. I felt that my daughter is dying.”Another parent understands the emotions that Sabrera is experiencing. Michael Quijas' fifteen year-old daughter was diagnosis with leukemia. “It is almost like we have joined a fraternity of parents whose children are battling sickness. Anything that I can do to get the word out is what I have decided to do.” His daughter, Kaylee, does not need a bone marrow transplant. “She is getting ready to go into maintenance and then they start to see if it comes back or not and if it does come back, then we have to look into other options like bone marrow.”Until a disease hits a family, many people are unaware that the National Bone Marrow Registry is lacking in minority donors. “The registry needs minorities, especially Hispanics, and if we can get one person to sign up then we have added one more person on the list to help someone,” said LaGail Chism, recruiter specialist for the Bone Marrow Program.The registry is made up of about seven million people. Four million registrants are Caucasian with only about 460,000 registered Hispanics. “If a Caucasian person needs a bone marrow transplant they have an eighty percent chance of living but a Hispanic has an eighty percent chance of dying,” said Chism.Knowing that the statistics are stacked against Kerry, it makes Chism’s job even harder when she has to turn a potential donor away because of lack of identification. At the drive last week, a woman named Maria came to register but did not have any identification with her. She had no social security number, driver’s license or green card. Visibly upset and with tears streaming down her face, she told Hispanic News “they did not allow me to apply because I did not have papers. They told me it is the law. We had the intention but could not do it. We tried and it hurts not to be able to help.”“It is the requirements of the National Bone Marrow Donor Program,” explained Chism. “We have to have some identification in case they are a match for someone then we can locate them. That is how we locate them through social security or a driver’s license. It is heartbreaking and I wish we could come up with something that we can sign up willing donors. That is what we want, willing donors. It is hard watching them walk out and they may be a match for someone who needs it.”Chism is determined to investigate ways that someone like Maria may be able to register. Not only is the program a national program but it is also an international registry so there may be a way that individuals can register in their home countries. “I know there has to be some way we can work this out.”Unfortunately, a match has not been found for Magaña. They do have family in Honduras and there is the chance that one of them could be a match for her. “If they can get registered over there and if they are compatible with me, they will fly them over and have everything done. We may have to go looking for the other family members in Honduras if we can’t find a match here,” said Magaña.“It is terrible to know what will happen. The leukemia and cancer are so insidious they can hide in your system and then attack. It is a miracle that my daughter is here, knowing that she needs a transplant while other children are hospitalized waiting to die without a transplant. My child is not there right now and that is a miracle,” said Sabrera.People interested in more information or signing up for the registry can contact the National Marrow Donor Program at Heart of America Donor Center, 8700 State Line Road, Suite 340, Leawood, KS 66206 or call (913) 901-3100, (800) 366-6710.

Joe Arce and Debra Decoster

HISPANIC NEWS

Bigger things to worry about...

I was thinking about how certain things or circumstances don't really get me upset as they once did. I sit here ready to give examples and I can't think of any. Lets just say that there's almost nothing that can upset me. As long as it doesn't threaten me, I'm fine. Something about this sickness.

Since we started this recovery process I'm convinced that there are so many other things in life to get worked up over. Bad news, tragedy, and disppointment might be a few but petty issues aren't going to cloud my days. I choose to focus on good things. If something doesn't pose a danger or a need for immediate action then I pass these days on any kind of conflict. This makes me feel like I've grown as a person. Who would think that something like sickness could make you grow as human. It has opened my eyes to for the better.

I went to a Bone Marrow Drive this morning. The drive was for Kerry Magana. She is fourteen and battling leukemia like Kaylee. Just like Kaylee, she has A.L.L.. Kerry relapsed and needs a marrow transplant. I battled the weather and made it down for the drive. I was connected to the event by circumstances of health. If that doesn't make sense or the wording was wrong, I was also connected by my mild participation in promoting this important event. I received the info for the drive and had Kerry on the Hispanic radio on Friday, in the Hispanic News Daily Newspaper this last week and posted in charitable organizations across town. I felt compelled to help in one way or another. I feel her family's pain.

So what did you today? Well I hope you stay happy and conflict keeps away. If you need to find clarity in your life then look for good things even if it means sifting through things you think are bad. I would recommend that you stay from the events that guided me to see things different. But if heartbreak and saddness does appear I suggest you take whatever good you can find and try to do something great with it. Treat your family well and try to contribute to your community. You might make a difference.