COSTA MESA : Boy’s Wish to Visit Iran Comes True

Ten-year-old Shervin’s last wish almost didn’t come true.

Suffering from inoperable brain cancer, the Iranian child wanted nothing more than a trip to his homeland to visit his grandparents, friends and the family dog, Schulzie.

But relations between Iran and the United States threatened to make the wish an impossibility.

Getting permission from both countries last April to allow Shervin to be treated for cancer in the United States was tough enough, relatives said. But this time, his uncle Mike said: “I told him to make another wish, that this one would probably be impossible.”

The Make-A-Wish Foundation, a Newport Beach group that grants final wishes to dying children, approached the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in September about securing a visa for Shervin for a five-week visit home. The department was less than helpful, said Kevin Sheridan, a foundation volunteer.

Sheridan turned to Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad) for help.

“Kevin didn’t quite understand the depth of the problem,” said Packard aide Karen Raby. “I think he thought that when a congressman called, the INS jumped.”

Two months later, Raby was still hopping between federal agencies in Los Angeles and Washington, trying to get authority for Shervin’s visa.

One official told her, “Sorry, there is nothing we can do. Tell him not to go,” Raby remembers.

“I felt like a volleyball,” she said. “No one would take responsibility for it.”

Finally, in December, approval came from an assistant director in the INS’s Los Angeles office.

There was one more tense moment, when the director failed to notify the Westminster INS office of the approval and the local agency turned the family down cold. But one more phone call from Raby, and Shervin was on his way to Iran.

“This has been a real emotionally draining case,” Raby said, “because Shervin has been really special to me.”

It will be one year ago next month that Shervin’s parents, who asked not to be identified because they fear repercussions in Iran, first noticed that something was wrong with their normally outgoing, happy child.

“He started complaining of headaches,” his father said. “Then his right eye started drifting.”

When Shervin was diagnosed as having a tumor in his brain stem, “our doctors told us to take him to America for treatment, that America has the best doctors in the world.”

Leaving behind their home and a booming construction business, the family moved in with relatives in Costa Mesa.

Since then, Shervin has gone through three major operations, including one to install a tube from his brain stem to his stomach to siphon off excess fluid.

His mother said the way Shervin “has handled himself has been extraordinary. He doesn’t always want to go to his treatment, but he accepts it.”

“The only thing he has ever asked for was a nurse to hold his hand during the operations because I was not allowed in the room.”

Although he is now paralyzed on one side and his right eye is blind, Shervin is still undergoing chemotherapy. Even if he continues to worsen, there are one or two more treatments left, his father said.

“We left our home, my company and all that we have so we can bring him here to get better,” he said. “All we want is for him to get better so that we can go back home. We are not giving up hope.”