Isolated but Not Ignored : The world she left behind hasn’t forgotten leukemia victim, 5.

Joanne Cohen hesitated at first when her 5-year-old boy pleaded to visit a kindergarten playmate who has been hospitalized with leukemia in a sterilized “bubble” for nearly two months.

Cohen said she was worried that the unusual hospital setting might scare her son. And she was frightened herself by the prospect of having to answer the questions about death that inevitably would follow such a trip.

So Cohen quietly went by herself to Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles where 5-year-old Regina Won of Canoga Park is undergoing chemotherapy for acute monocytic leukemia, a disease with a discouraging 20% survival rate.

“Regina just lit up when I asked her if she’d like to see some of the kids from her class,” Cohen recalled Tuesday. “The nurses down there kept saying that a positive attitude like that will help Regina. That made the decision for me.”

A few days later, Cohen returned to the hospital with son Brian and two classmates. Despite the clear plastic curtains that isolate patients who are susceptible to infection from visitors who might be carrying germs, the kindergartners had a joyous reunion, she said.

“There’s a pocket with a glove that you can put your hands through and the kids were able to hold her hand and play games,” the Hidden Hills woman said.

“Regina had been holding a mirror when we walked in; she was concerned about losing her hair. But before long she was laughing and carrying on and talking about school.”

The visit was only one of many ways children and their parents in the West Valley have been trying to lift the child’s spirits since Regina was hospitalized Jan. 3 with what her parents thought was just a nagging case of the flu.

Instead of ducking the issue, teachers at her Round Meadow Elementary School in Calabasas have discussed Regina’s cancer with the children, set up regular telephone calls and tape-recorded messages from kindergartners to Regina.

Parents have organized a series of pizza night fund-raisers--one is scheduled from 5 to 9 p.m. today at Round Table Pizza restaurant on Platt Avenue in Canoga Park--to help Regina’s parents with non-medical expenses. Dozens of others have given blood for the transfusions needed by the girl.

Annette Shniderman , Regina’s kindergarten teacher, has initiated a do-it-yourself tutoring program to keep her up to date with lessons and classroom gossip. Shniderman climbs into a white “spacesuit” that allows her to work with the child using sterilized workbooks.

“I really feel that, for Regina to have a good mental attitude, she has to have part of her world there. She has to feel a part of it,” Shniderman said.

Regina’s hospitalization has prompted classroom discussions for which 22 years of teaching did not prepare her, Shniderman acknowledged Tuesday.

“One little boy asked if Regina was going to die,” she said. “I said I didn’t know, that she was very sick and people were trying to make her better. We talked about old people dying and that usually young people don’t die, so there’s no reason for them to worry about themselves.

“But Regina didn’t walk off the edge of the world and disappear. She is still a part of us.”

Principal Not Surprised

Bob DeBoise, principal at Round Meadow School, said he is not surprised by the community’s reaction to the girl’s illness.

“Regina is only a kindergartner. And her family just moved here last fall,” DeBoise said. “But this area in some respects is like a small town. We’re at the edge of the Valley and there’s a distinct community feeling that seems to pull people together.”

Sandra Shultz, a Calabasas resident whose daughter is in Regina’s kindergarten class, said the owner of a local print shop volunteered to print flyers telling of the fund-raising and blood drives. Local supermarkets’ managers volunteered to stuff the flyers in shopping bags.

Childrens Hospital doctors who are treating Regina said the unusual community support is helpful for the girl, who they said probably faces another nine weeks of hospitalization before the first phase of treatment is over.

“A good mental attitude is extremely important, particularly in a protected environment like she’s in,” Dr. Jorge Ortega said. “It’s very important, psychologically. Very important.”

Parents Overwhelmed

Regina’s mother, Helen Won, said she and her 41-year-old husband, Eugene, have been overwhelmed by the outpouring.

“I don’t think we could go on without their support,” said Helen Won, 34, who quit her travel agency job to spend her days at the hospital with Regina. “They have made it so much easier on Regina. She is so anxious to come home and go back to school.”

Helen Won said doctors generally have been candid about her daughter’s chance for survival, although “when I ask about it, one of the doctors talks about different things.”

Hospital officials said the expensive treatment is being financed by state and federal children’s health programs because the Wons do not have their own insurance.

Susan Jay, a psychologist at the hospital, said officials will be available to counsel Regina and her young friends when Regina is released and allowed to return to school.

“The point is for everyone to treat her normally. It’s OK for children to ask questions about her illness,” Jay said--describing, in effect, what the young patient’s friends already have learned.