A Young Man’s Valiant Fight Has Come to an End

Chad Brendlinger, a Canyon High School graduate whose battle with leukemia became a community cause, has died of the disease at age 20. A memorial service is scheduled for Tuesday.

Neighbors, friends and strangers participated in a bone marrow drive last year, and the family hung banners at an intersection near their Yorba Linda home to provide updates on Brendlinger’s condition.

On Sunday, while preparing for the funeral and memorial gatherings, John and Jackie Brendlinger took time to thank their extended family for support. Friends placed a banner in memory of their son at Yorba Linda Boulevard and Village Center Drive, where the news banners had hung before. Brendlinger died Thursday.

“The community really supported us,” said John Brendlinger. “They just rallied for him, and we had bone marrow and blood drives.”

Brendlinger was stricken with leukemia three years ago. After other treatments were unsuccessful, the family turned to a bone marrow transplant as the only remaining therapy for the disease, which attacks the blood-producing marrow.

The community conducted a donor drive in February 1999. But no exact match was found, either through the drive or in a search of the 3.5 million registrants in the National Marrow Donor Program in Minneapolis.

Eventually, partially matching marrow was donated by a cousin, Jennifer Fisbeck of Oklahoma. Brendlinger had the transplant in July at Richland Memorial Hospital in Columbia, S.C., which specializes in partial-match transplants.

“There was no rejection and the cancer went in remission,” John Brendlinger said. “[Chad] came home in November but went in for his six-month checkup and the cancer had come back.”

Brendlinger loved water-skiing and had a passion for dirt bikes. “One of his favorite things was being with kids, and that was what he wanted to go to college for: to work with kids as a psychologist,” said John Brendlinger, who owns a corrugated box company in Orange.

Near the end of his life, Brendlinger persuaded his family to go to the desert with several friends so they could all go horseback riding together.

“At first, I didn’t want him to go,” John Brendlinger recalled. “My wife said he needed to get out, and so we packed up the motor home and we got to ride with all his friends and had a good time.”

Upon their return, Brendlinger went into the hospital for more chemotherapy.

Family members who learned medical terminology and about the science of cancer during their long ordeal, also became acquainted with the courage and the loyalty of Brendlinger’s closest friends, Gus Zemen and cousin Gilly Torres.

“Most kids would have run out and done other things,” John Brendlinger said. “Gus stayed by his side all through this thing, went to South Carolina to see him. He would sit with him for days when Chad was so sick and couldn’t do anything.”

In addition to his parents, Brendlinger is survived by his brother, Chris, 24, and sister, Shellie, 15.

A public viewing is scheduled Monday from 5 to 9 p.m., at Forest Lawn in West Covina, with a memorial service at 2 p.m. Tuesday at Rose Drive Friends Christian Church in Yorba Linda.