19-year old girl with leukemia needs help

By Ramon Dacawi

BAGUIO CITY -- Nineteen-year old Rossana Estras, youngest of four children of a tricycle driver from Sison, Pangasinan, was diagnosed in September the other year for acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL).

It’ a type of blood cancer triggered by abnormally large production of immature white blood cells called lymphocytes.

It’s “acute” because it can progress fast. In Rossana’s case, it did.

In fact, the girl suffered a relapse, as reflected in the clinical abstract prepared last February by Dr. Mary Crist Delos Santos of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center.

That means she is back to square one, or worse, in her protracted treatment.

She had undergone  chemotherapy initially with support from Senators Trillanes, Allan Peter Cayetano and Pia Cayetano and Rep. Kim Cojuangco of Pangasinan.

While she was back last week in her hospital bed at the fourth floor fo the Flavier Building of the BGHMC, her father, Noli, 44, was out looking for help here.

As does chemotherapy, which  works  like shotgun, affecting even normal and healthy cells, Rossana last week wrote shotgun.

The girl signed an authority for her case to be publicized, crossing her fingers it would hit Samaritans out there, for them to respond and support a fresh start of treatment protocol.

The price is pegged at P34,200 a month for the “remission induction chemotherapy” to be given weekly for four to six weeks. It was to have started last February yet, when the relapse was diagnosed.

That figure does not include blood tests, blood products, disposable syringes, intravenous catheters ,tubings, fluids, gloves and other needs during chemotherapy.

Noli, who has three other children, earns between P150 to P200 daily driving a tricycle owned by a barangay official  of Asan Norte Barangay in Sison, Pangasinan.

He hasn’t earned any for days now spent looking up the sky and tossing questions any parent in his situation has all the right to ask.

“I left her in the hospital with her mother (Mary Ann),” he said.

He explained another patient at the cancer ward of the BGHMC suggested for him to try asking media to publicize his daughter’s plight so that Samaritans hereabouts, especially those who trace their roots to Pangasinan, would know and help.

Rossana, then a second year hotel and restaurant management student at the Pan-Pacific University in Urdaneta, Pangasinan,  was rushed to the BGHMC on Sept, 2, 2011. She was then  throwing up and suffering from nausea, back pains and blurred vision.

The final diagnosis: acute lymphocytic leukemia.

The girl has no cellphone. Those who would like to reach out to her may ring up her father’s cellphone number: 09204508497.