‘I think I would have dragged my feet if it hadn’t been for the cancer.’

Carlos Barila, born in Argentina and trained in civil engineering at the University of Rome, first worked with computers at Pan American World Airways. He later started a computerized travel agency in Granada Hills. Barila wanted to start his own computer company but doubted his business expertise. Five years ago at UCLA Medical Center, he got the courage to take the risk. Barila, 49, lives in Valencia.

In ’84 I had an encounter with the Big C. I had pains in my stomach. They were not normal. They took several hundred CAT scan pictures, and a couple hours later they were shown to me on a wall display with a light behind it, and it looked like an ad for footballs. No one felt that it was cancer, because cancer tumors are not known to be that large.

The biopsy was done at Dr. Roslyn’s office at UCLA. He was almost maternal, the way he handled it. It was not happy news. I knew that he was going to tell me that I had it, so I was half listening to him and half reviewing what I had done in 44 years. I remember feeling the tears run down my cheeks. I said to myself: “This is not going to take me. I’m going to fight it. I’m too young to die.”

The operation was very long, it lasted more than 18 hours. My body was practically partitioned in two, like a walnut. Dr. Morton had devised maps on how to get in and what to touch and what not to touch, and he even mapped out where they were going to be landing the pieces as they extracted them.

They removed, I believe, a total of 38 or 42 pounds, altogether. And they removed my right kidney, a piece of my right lung and 60% of my liver.

The best way I put it to people is to think of a balloon being inflated, inside of a fish tank. That’s what it felt like inside of my body. The inflated balloon is going to push the little fish against the glass and the water out of the tank. In my case it pushed my kidney all the way down like if you step on a grape.

When I left the hospital, I had exactly half my weight from the day I went in. I went in weighing about 180 pounds, and I got out of the hospital at 92.

I saw part of the videotape of the operation, and the thing looks awful. Every time they have a fund-raiser they still use the picture of that tumor. The method that Dr. Morton used to extract this tremendous watermelon from inside me is still taught in surgery classes. It makes me feel that at least my contribution may help others, I hope.

I went through every possible experimental treatment that UCLA had to offer, plus the conventional and approved ones. I went through the chemotherapy, and that I don’t recommend. I’d rather have a drink. Radiation. I was totally hairless. Every single piece of hair on my body fell. It was a real experience.

After my recovery in late ‘84, I decided that if it was the last thing I do, I want to build a computer that my software goes in. I want to work on the whole package, not just doing the software. I didn’t have that much confidence in my business knowledge. I think I would have dragged my feet if it hadn’t been for the cancer.

I used the negative, “What if it’s not as good as the doctors tell me? What if I only have three more years? I want to at least know that I gave it a try.” That gave me the energy and the guts to do it.

I started small. We opened here in Van Nuys, and we were successful. Within a month we were already in the black.

We assemble our own computers. We custom design the software. We set up systems. We give you a turnkey operation, including the training. We now have two stores, and I think that we will make it.

At least once a month I spend a day at UCLA talking to other patients, some of them not as lucky as I was and some of them, they’re not sure what’s going to happen. I tell everyone that you’re not dead until you’re dead, and so you can’t give up your faith and give up hope or give up fighting until there’s no more fight. From one day to the next discoveries do take place.

I was like reborn in 1984. And my parents are at UCLA now. I owe my life to them.