Old Pain, New Spirit Amid Cancer Fight

In her dreams, Monica Polanco is drinking a tall glass of water filled with ice cubes.

After three years of fighting a cancerous tumor on her diaphragm, Polanco, 20, is gaunt and often in pain, unable to breathe without an oxygen machine, unable to eat or to drink more than sips of liquid. That cold glass of water is what she longs for most.

From her bed at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, Polanco almost sounds surprised that such a simple thing should be her heart’s desire. But, she says, the elemental joys of life mean most to her now.

Last week, she said, doctors told her they had exhausted the standard treatments for her cancer, called rhabdomyosarcoma. It is a form of the disease that usually strikes young children and adolescents, but it is rarely found on the diaphragm.

Polanco’s struggle with cancer--the highs and lows of her battle--are not unlike the experiences of countless other patients. Yet, the courage she has shown since her diagnosis three years ago as a promising high school senior, the love of her family and the peace she has found within herself serve as a symbol for others.

Polanco receives chemotherapy, but the will to live is her strongest medicine. Deeply religious and educated at Roman Catholic schools, she trusts God will take care of her and says she is not afraid to die.

But she’s not ready to go.

As Polanco’s body has weakened, her spirit has grown strong.

The change is so dramatic--from old Polanco to new--that she calls it a miracle of God. Where once she was an admittedly tough teenager, now she is tender.

She can look people in the eye when talking to them, and she can cry--things she couldn’t bring herself to do before. The defenses around her heart have dropped, and the girl of a few years ago, who might have beaten you up for your lunch money, is gone.

Polanco cried when she described herself.

“I never used to be emotional. I couldn’t cry because I didn’t know how to cry. I thought I was macho woman,” she said. “I’m a much better person than I ever was, and I’m so happy and so grateful for that.”

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When her cancer was diagnosed three years ago, Polanco was two months into her senior year at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana. Chemotherapy treatments kept her out of class for the rest of the year, but friends and family brought her homework and tests.

Polanco graduated to a standing ovation from her classmates, who told The Times then that her fight with cancer had given them a new awareness of life and that because of her courage, they learned the meaning of friendship.

Twice in three years, Polanco has been hospitalized to receive chemotherapy. She was optimistic she had beaten the cancer when the tumor disappeared, and for seven months, her doctor told her, the disease was in remission. Friends and family celebrated on April 30, 1996, Polanco’s birthday, with a pizza party. But less than three months later, her stomach started to swell, and doctors told her the tumor had returned.

The news didn’t crush her spirit. It just meant the struggle to live would begin anew.

Her father, Narciso, and stepmother, Rosa, visit daily, and her mother, Felipa, sleeps in a chair beside her every night. Together the family watches the great struggle before them as Polanco finds the will to fight for her life and accept that it may soon end.

Many of the people who rejoiced when she was well are constantly at her bedside, praying, singing hymns and encouraging her to hope, which at times is not so easy.

One doctor tried to make sure she knew that the latest round of chemotherapy may not work.

“She said, ‘Do you know what that means?’ I said yes. She said ‘Are you sure you know what that means? I said, ‘Yes, I know.’ ”

Directness from her doctors, she said, is better than “the runaround.”

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“They’ve tried their hardest, but they don’t really know what to do with me,” Polanco said. “Now I think they’re experimenting.”

Her doctors refused to speak to a reporter about Polanco’s condition but abundantly praised her as a person.

“I can tell you that everyone--physicians, patients, staff--loves Monica,” said Dr. Jerry Finklestein. “She is a unique woman, and I have been honored to have Monica as a patient.”

If Polanco could tell her story, it would be about how God saved her soul.

“I hear God much more clearly now, and when people are praying for me, I can tell,” she said. “I have total hope and faith, but that means that whatever happens, God is with me. So there’s nothing for me to worry about.”

Glancing at her mother, Polanco added, “But I think she’s in denial.”

Maybe so, her mother accedes, but a little denial feeds her hope.

“Every morning I sit up and look over to see if she’s breathing. I see her stomach go up and down, and then I thank God for just one more day,” Felipa Polanco said.

The last few months have been difficult ones for Felipa Polanco. Because of her daughter’s medical bills, she lost the Santa Ana house where she and Narciso Polanco raised their five children. Before Polanco was hospitalized, she and her mother moved into a friend’s Huntington Beach home.

The Polancos were divorced three years ago but remain on cordial terms. Narciso Polanco, a train engineer, has insurance that covers some of Polanco’s bills.

“I’ve turned Monica over to God, because that’s all I can do,” Narciso Polanco said. “But she’s a fighter, a real fighter, so we’re not giving up.”

Much of Polanco’s waking time is spent in prayer or listening to the Bible on tape.

When Polanco sleeps, occasionally Felipa Polanco steps into the hallways of the pediatric hemotology-oncology ward to chat with other parents and to comfort and be comforted by them.

Polanco is the oldest patient on the ward. She remained in pediatrics rather than change doctors and move to an adult ward as she has gotten older.

During the day, the ward is always in a bustle. A toddler bald from chemotherapy, who one day was hardly able to sit up, whizzed by days later on a pink baby scooter, trailing an intravenous line on rollers behind her. And always, new children, obvious because they still have some hair, move into recently vacated rooms.

Most of the parents know one another and how everyone’s children are doing. In spite of the children’s struggles for life, the ward is not a gloomy place. The staff is good-natured and sympathetic but not sentimental.

Dr. Daniel Scaff rolls his chair from one end of the hall to the other, flipping charts as he goes and bringing a smile to parents and children.

“We--the mothers here--think it’s his engagement,” Felipa Polanco whispered as he rolled away. “You can see sometimes that he just can’t help being happy. It makes me feel good to look at him.”

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Likewise, when a child recovers, everyone is happy. And when a child gets sicker, each family suffers.

One recent afternoon, a family down the hall from Polanco learned their boy had taken a turn for the worse. They sobbed quietly in the hall so he wouldn’t hear them.

Felipa Polanco wrapped her arms around one of the boy’s sisters and cried with her.

“Oh God, we’re going to lose him--I think we’re going to lose him,” the sister sobbed.

The boy’s family members put drops in their eyes to mask the tears and returned to his room. Felipa Polanco stood over her own sleeping child and continued to cry.

“Te quiero mucho, chiquita,” she said. I love you very much, little girl.

Monica Polanco does not mind if her visitors cry, although most don’t in her presence.

Her aunt visiting from Texas, however, wears an almost joyous look.

“My faith is in Jesus--he is the great, supreme being, so I know she’ll be just fine,” said Mary Salinas, smiling.

But Polanco’s former roommate on the ward, Stephanie Barela, 21, could barely hold back her tears until her visit was over.

“It’s just not fair. She’s been going through this for so long. I can’t understand why this is happening,” she said.

Barela, of Lakewood, had been receiving chemotherapy for months when then-17-year-old Polanco was brought onto the ward. “I could see she was new because she still had some hair, but she was scared, and I tried to tell her what to expect.”

Barela’s non-Hodgkins lymphoma already was going into remission, and now she is cancer-free, with a head of thick, glossy red hair.

“It was so hard for me to come. I didn’t want to flaunt that I’m better, because she should be better too,” Barela said.

But by Polanco’s standards she is better, and she’s getting better every day.