Inspiration for a New Life

Silvia Cortez once told her mother that if she could have anything she wanted, she would be undecided between a horse and long, brown curly hair.

Two months ago, the 4-year-old cancer patient, who has never known what it’s like to have her own hair because of her chemotherapy, got a wig that partially fulfilled one of her wishes.

On Thursday, she got a taste of her other one: a horseback ride with Dillon, a horse who usually carries Los Angeles Police Department officers.

Silvia’s ride was a gift from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Cop for a Day program--especially from Officer Steve Bertolino.

Bertolino, 47, met Silvia two years ago when they were both hospitalized with cancer. His was a brain tumor; hers was a type of pediatric ovarian cancer diagnosed when she was 17 months old.

It was Bertolino’s second battle with cancer, and the young cancer patients he had seen at the hospital the first time convinced him that he had to do something to help. So he retired from his financial services business, scaled down his hours at the Newton Division station and, with several other officers, began Cop for a Day.

It has given him a renewed enthusiasm for life.

So far, children have gotten a chance to run with a dog from the canine unit, ride in a helicopter and wear a police uniform tailored to fit them. Police Chief Bernard C. Parks pinned a police badge on one boy.

“We can do something for them that distracts them from the rigors of chemotherapy,” Bertolino said. “They can enjoy something other than the pain and suffering of treatment.”

Bertolino’s first bout with cancer began in 1986, two years after he joined the force.

He was enjoying his wife and son, now 28, and his firm was taking off.

“The only thing I knew about cancer was that you die from it,” he said.

The cancer went into remission after eight months of chemotherapy and radiation.

Bertolino said he lost so much weight and hair that his superiors often asked him to buy drugs for undercover investigations.

More than a decade later, in 1997, Bertolino learned he had a brain tumor. He underwent surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.

That’s when he met Silvia, as he watched her play with her toy horses in the hospital’s playroom. She had a family of horses led by the “Mommy” and “Daddy” horses.

Recently, she asked him if she could ride a police horse. A few weeks later she was being hoisted onto Dillon and began riding with Officer Pat Kouri at the Ahmanson Equestrian Facility in Silver Lake.

Her long, curly hair bounced with each gallop. Her mother, Zaira, cheered her on.

“Hola princesa,” Zaira shouted. “She’s so happy now.”

Silvia, Kouri said, “wants to go fast.”

When she dismounted, Bertolino held Silvia in his arms.

“I’ve given my whole life to this,” Bertolino said. “You haven’t begun to live until you’ve almost died. Life has just taken off through my cancer and through helping them.”

Silvia is midway through her current round of chemotherapy. Bertolino’s cancer is in remission.

Lauri Seamark, a child life specialist at Cedars-Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Center, where Silvia receives her treatments, said: “I watch her turn more and more into a normal little girl every day. She wants all the things that a normal little girl wants.”

So do other children in her spot, Bertolino believes.

“As long as God gives me life,” he said, “this is how I’m going to spend it.”