Reason to Rejoice : Teen Wins Round in Fight Against Bone Cancer, Graduates From Warren High With Honors

Nancy Rizk was exuberant. She had just won a major round in her exhausting battle against a deadly bone cancer and had graduated with honors from Warren High School in Downey.

“It was the end of chemo, the end of school. . . ,” 17-year-old Rizk exulted.

Her high school graduation ceremony on June 21, came just five days after she received her final chemotherapy treatment.

Looking Forward to College

Now, after more than a year of fighting the rare disease that caused a cancerous lump to grow on her jawbone, Rizk is looking optimistically to a third milestone--her freshman year at UC Santa Barbara.

Doctors who treated Rizk during her bout with the sarcoma said that her chances for a full recovery are good. Without the surgery and chemotherapy treatments that almost ruined her chances of getting into college, the disease would have killed her.

But the goal of graduating with her senior class provided the motivation to get through the often nauseating doses of chemicals that followed surgery to remove the malignancy, said her mother, Ikhlas.

In spite of several stays in the hospital, Rizk graduated with a 3.95 grade-point average, receiving several awards, honors and scholarships. “This last quarter I managed to pull a 4.0,” she said. She also served as class historian.

Rizk’s ordeal began in September, 1987, when she visited her dentist for a routine teeth cleaning, she said. The dentist noticed a small lump inside her mouth, just below her tongue.

He assured her “that there was nothing to be worried about,” Rizk said in an interview recently. But the lump never went away, she said, and she became worried. The lump was later diagnosed as a life-threatening form of bone cancer.

Nine months after she first noticed the lump, surgeons removed the right side of her jawbone and replaced it with a steel plate.

Disease Is in Remission

“The doctors felt that they got it all (in surgery),” said Patty Smith, the oncology nurse who has been tracking Rizk’s recovery since last August. “The chemo was done in case there was any cancer left over.”

Smith said that “remission is the best word that I would use” to describe Rizk’s condition. Although Rizk is not under any therapy, Smith said, doctors will continue to monitor her condition.

“There is always a chance for it to come up again,” Smith said. “You don’t really know. If it comes up, it could be in a few months or a few years. (But) they do feel very optimistic that she is in full recovery.”

After her surgery, Rizk began the long, slow process to recovery, which included several hospital stays so she could receive chemotherapy, a treatment that includes doses of strong chemicals to fight any remaining malignant cells. Besides causing extreme nausea, chemotherapy can also result in hair loss.

“My hair literally covered the sink,” Rizk grimaced. Her hair, which once reached her shoulder blades, began falling out in patches. Refusing to let her spirit succumb to the effects of the treatment, she bought a wig and promised herself that she would remain active when not in the hospital.

Sports Put Aside

But the sports life she enjoyed was sidelined. Once a member of the junior varsity cross-country and basketball and varsity swimming teams, Rizk found that she no longer had the energy to compete in the sports she loved.

“It was really hard to sit on the sidelines and watch” while her former teammates worked out after school, Rizk said.

While in the hospital, Rizk said she tried to ignore the effects of the chemotherapy and the “very depressing” surroundings. She continued to tackle such college preparatory courses as physics, pre-calculus and trigonometry.

“I’ve been a fighter almost all of my life and, with all of my studies in my senior year, I couldn’t give in,” she said, with more than a hint of pride in her voice.

Sometimes she could only study 30 minutes a day. Arrangements were made with her teachers so she could get class notes, assignments and make up missed exams.

Louise Sherman, assistant vice principal of attendance at Warren High, said the teachers wanted Rizk to get ahead and were willing to help the teen-ager with her studies while she underwent medical treatment.

“This kid taught me you hit it (any problem) head on and don’t give up,” Sherman said. “She told me she had no choice in contracting the disease, but she does have a choice in how she deals with it.”

Nurse Smith said that “Nancy handled (chemotherapy) better than most adults do. She would not pout and come in and say, ‘I don’t want to do it.’ She did it with a smile.

“Nancy is an inspiration to me. She set her goals and then met them. . . . It makes my life more full to meet someone who has a life-threatening disease who keeps going. It’s really a reward to work with people like her.”

Birthday Party

Friends also helped her recovery, Rizk said, by lifting her spirits when she was in the deepest moods. On her 17th birthday, for instance, Rizk was in a hospital bed when several friends appeared, bearing birthday cards, streamers and four cans of confetti spray.

“My room looked like a war zone,” she said. “I have been down. I’m only human. But I get together with my friends and they pick up my spirit.”

For now, Rizk is holding on to her dream of becoming a high school mathematics teacher after completing her college education.

“I am going to return to Warren High, as a matter of fact,” Rizk said when asked about long-range plans. “My principal told me, ‘OK, you come back in five years and we’ll have a job for you.’ ”