Beyond horsing around

Cassandra Rodriguez went to the doctor’s office one day for a checkup of an all-too-common toddler injury -- a bump on the head. But that small bump set into motion years of treatments that would change Cassandra’s life. After discovering lumps in her abdomen, the doctor found that 1-year-old Cassandra had two tumors, one of which engulfed a kidney.

“We were in a dream state,” Cassandra’s grandmother, Michelle Gutierrez, said about hearing the news. “We just felt numb.”

After three months of chemotherapy, the tumors hadn’t shrunk and Cassandra underwent an operation that removed one kidney and part of her second.

But only five months later, her second kidney began to fail. Cassandra underwent almost two years of dialysis four days a week, connected to the machines for three hours at a time. When she was nearly 4, doctors told the family that Cassandra would need a kidney transplant. Her mother donated her kidney.

Now 13, Cassandra takes 10 pills a day, some of which she will have to take for the rest of her life to prevent her body from rejecting the new kidney. She now requires blood tests only every three months to check her kidney function.

“She really has no limitations now,” Gutierrez said of Cassandra, who lives with her in the Pomona Valley.

Cassandra takes to more typical teenage pursuits now, such as having crushes on action-movie star Vin Diesel and singer Jesse McCartney. Wearing a pink Rolling Stones T-shirt and toying with a baby-blue cellphone, she reflects on her trip to summer camp.

This summer, Cassandra went rock climbing, canoeing and rode horses at Camp Edwards in Angelus Oaks through the Pomona YMCA. Her animal sightings at camp have helped spark dreams of becoming a veterinarian, and she has laid the foundations for her education by taking care of her neighbors’ boxer and pit bull. She makes it clear she prefers working hands-on with animals to textbooks and tests.

“I don’t like school,” she said bluntly. “It’s boring and hard.”

Cassandra has grudgingly accepted that her career choice will require several more years of schooling. But at camp, it seems she has already bonded with other species. She counts herself among the lucky campers who have yet to be bitten by a mosquito or other insect.

Cassandra was among the 12,000 children who went to camp this summer thanks to $2.1 million raised in the Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Campaign last year. Donations this season will ensure that just as many deserving children get the camp experience next summer.

The annual fund-raising campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which this year will match the first $1.2 million in contributions at 50 cents on the dollar.

Donations are tax-deductible. For more information, call (213) 237-5771. To make donations by credit card, go to latimes.com/summercamp.

To send checks, use the attached coupon. Do not send cash.

Unless requested otherwise, gifts of $50 or more will be acknowledged in The Times.