National City Couple Put Hopes in Bone Marrow as Both Face Cancer

For Delfino and Mary Martinez, life has been reduced to odds: 50-50.

Those are the chances that doctors have given each of being cured of cancer by a bone-marrow transplant.

Delfino, 39, needs a marrow transplant for Hodgkin’s disease; he will use his own marrow “harvested” from a period of remission gained through chemotherapy.

Mary, 30, has found a marrow donor for her chronic leukemia. It was a long and costly process not covered by health insurance.

It wasn’t that long ago that life was bright for the National City couple.

Delfino was a senior maintenance worker for the city of Chula Vista. Mary was a loan adjuster for Union Bank in San Diego.

They were raising their children: Bianca, 12, (his); Michael, 11, (hers), and Delfino Jr., 4, (theirs). And dreaming of buying a home.

Then Delfino fell mysteriously sick in April, 1990. On May 5 of that year, his condition was diagnosed as Hodgkin’s, a form of lymph cancer.

Life became a round of tests, treatments, medical claims and bouts of disability and nausea.

Then, on Nov. 8, 1990, just as Delfino’s condition began to improve, Mary was found to have leukemia.

After months of struggle, neither can now work. They struggle to survive and maintain hope, while waiting for their transplant operations this summer.

There are moments of “Why us?” despair. And efforts to pull together for the children.

There are also friends rallying to their side: Friday, a $15-a-plate fund-raising lunch will be held for them at the Logan Heights Family Health Foundation.

“Last week our son wrote a story in school about his wishes for the future,” Mary said. “He wrote that he hopes we are still alive to see him grow up and have his own children.

“That’s what we want, too.”

City Hall Goes Tabloid

Is the secret $100,000 the most delicious city scandal or what?

It’s a wonderful chance for all of us to revel in salacious details about The Boss and The Blonde and feel morally superior while doing it.

True, the City Charter, which frowns on staff members keeping the mayor and council in the dark, has taken a beating. Purity of motives doesn’t make it better.

If Robert Spaulding’s quick removal and the public spanking for the staff planned for next Monday deters any more funny business, more’s the civic better.

The major player, John Lockwood, is retired and out of reach.

John Witt, Curtis Fitzpatrick and Rich Snapper will most likely take their lumps gracefully as the television cameras roll.

It comes with the turf: They are big boys, make good money and are not required to work outside in the rain. They also have long records of honorable public service.

And could it be that Councilman Ron Roberts is proving that Lockwood was right?: That council members, if clued in, would quickly shovel out intimate details that are best kept private?

Take the lip-smacking lead on a front-page story in the Tribune: “The employee . . . had initially filed a claim that Spaulding made sex with him a condition of a satisfactory performance evaluation. . . .”

Attributed to Roberts, with his saucy quote later: “Her decision was to yield to Mr. Spaulding.” Roberts says now he was merely speculating, not leaking.

Either way, decide for yourself whether that’s the stuff of a textbook on good government or “A Current Affair.”

‘I Just Do the Filing’

Round and around.

* For Robert Spaulding’s secretary, Natalie Crosthwaite, his inglorious ouster was deja vu all over again.

She also worked for Council Members Linda Bernhardt, Uvaldo Martinez and Jess Haro, all of whom left under a cloud.

* North County bumper sticker: “I’m Over It . . . OK?”

* Utility fighter Michael Shames is thinking of running for San Diego City Council this year against Bruce Henderson.

Since helping kill The Merger, Shames is hot property: Four political consultants have called with offers to run his campaign.