Without Cancer, 'I'd Not Be Who I Am' : Health: Some young adults at Childrens Hospital say the disease made them grow up faster than their peers, and even gave them an edge.

By SHARI ROAN

July 15, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES HEALTH WRITER

Alberto Lopez trembled as he walked to the podium to face his classmates at North Hollywood’s Providence High School.

He began to breathe hard. He wasn’t sure he could tell them. Tell all of them, sitting there, staring at him.

Lopez had done a good job keeping his secret for eight years. No one knew. And now he was about to tell everyone that he wasn’t really like them at all.

He was a cancer survivor.

So he told them. He told how he had faced big problems in his young life: immigration from Colombia, poverty, illness. In terms of maturity, Alberto Lopez is way ahead of his peers. He didn’t say that, of course. But he knew it.

“Cancer made me grow up,” says Lopez, a cheerful 18-year-old. “It made me see life faster than a lot of kids do. For most kids, the most medical experience they have is going for a checkup. I’ve gone through a million needles.

“If I hadn’t had cancer, I wouldn’t be who I am.”

On this Tuesday night, about 25 teen-agers and young adults, most sporting oversized T-shirts and sneakers, have found a windowless dining room near the cafeteria at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles. They tear into boxes of pizza, argue about the merits of “Batman Returns,” tease and cajole. They pore over photographs of a recent excursion.

Sure, they would have rather not had cancer. But if not for the illness, many say with a smile, they don’t know where they’d be. They are quite sure they wouldn’t be any better off.

Linked by cancer, these youths have subtly pushed each other out of gangs and into healthy lifestyles; out of special education classes and into college; out of crisis and into self-confidence, according to the counselors and physicians who have come to know them well.

Many teen-age cancer patients at Childrens come from impoverished neighborhoods that surround the hospital, says Kathleen Ruccione, a nurse and public health expert who has studied kids and cancer. Most are minorities; some are immigrants. They understand about broken families, inner-city violence and not having enough money. They clearly have been dealt tough hands.

“These are kids for whom cancer isn’t the worst thing that has happened in their lives,” she says. “The relationships they form here go beyond cancer.”

Most who attend the support group, called Teen Impact, have come for help with living with cancer. But they have stayed because they get help with just living.

“This gives them an extra edge,” says Aura Kuperberg, a clinical social worker at Childrens. “A lot of these kids go on to college when they probably would not have otherwise.

“In a weird kind of way, the hospital has added a positive aspect to their lives even though they have had to suffer.”

Studies show that these youths also carry extra baggage, Ruccione says. In her own recent research, she found that childhood cancer survivors are less likely to marry and have children than their peers, and that they worry their children might not be healthy. Four of 10 survivors reported physical or emotional problems because of their cancer history, Ruccione says. And more than six of 10 reported that they asked the question: “Why me?”

That is usually the first question, says Myra Saltoun-Moran, a clinical psychologist at Childrens.

“Everyone asks that question. It’s the first stage of accepting the diagnosis. And then realizing there is no answer to the ‘why.’ It takes a lot of time for these kids to realize that it’s no one’s fault. And, commonly, there is a lot of anger.”

The anger fades, says Saltoun-Moran, but the experience doesn’t: “It changes their whole lives.”

Joseph Landin, 22, is a third-year college student from East L. A. who loves computers and cares for his sickly mother. He stood by solidly when he had to bury a good friend from Teen Impact recently. She had the same type of cancer he had: acute lymphocytic leukemia.

His illness diagnosed when he was 5, he was treated with drugs but relapsed four times in the next six years. In 1982, Landin entered UCLA Medical Center for a bone marrow transplant, and his cancer has been in remission since.

But there were other struggles. His father died of esophageal cancer when Landin was 13. It’s understandable why his mother can no longer talk to her son about cancer.

“Being a single parent--her worrying about me--made her sick,” Landin says.

At Teen Impact gatherings, he has a place to express himself.

“I have a lot of friends here,” says Landin. “The group is like a second family. It helps me to talk about my cancer. We talk about our fears and what might happen in the future.

“This experience made me mature. If none of this would have happened, I would have been more alone in my world. This gave me a lot of strength. I had to take charge of my own life after my bone marrow transplant.”

Rocky Romero, 18, of Los Angeles saunters into the meeting. He’s late and hangs on the fringe. The others have polished off the pizza and have pushed their chairs into a circle to talk.

Slouched over his chair and wearing a baseball cap and T-shirt, Rocky looks like an athlete.

In ninth grade, Rocky tried out for the school football team but was told he couldn’t play because his right eye was a prosthesis. He had lost the eye years before when he was stricken with retinoblastoma, a rare childhood eye cancer.

Rocky balked. He obtained consent forms from his parents, doctor, lawyer and insurer.

“I had to fight it,” he says. “I ended up winning.”

“One of the worst things you can have happen to you is to have cancer as a teen-ager,” says nurse Ruccione. “You are trying to figure out who you are, and then you’re put back in this dependent role.”

Teen-agers with cancer feel different. And, sometimes, they look different, she says.

“You gain weight, you lose your hair. Those are all real visible differences that set these kids apart.”

Teen Impact, which is sponsored by grants to Childrens Hospital but is in danger of losing its funding, gives the youths a place to be themselves.

“There is so much support here,” says Susie Acosta, 19, who lives in Central Los Angeles and has just completed her first year at Stanford. “These people are the only ones who understand me. We really don’t want to keep anything in. We have to talk to one another. Whenever a new person comes in, it’s hard for them to talk. Now, I can talk freely about anything.”

Brigitte Nagy, 17, of Studio City tells the group about her struggle to talk about cancer. Recently, Nagy decided to tell her school friends about her illness “because I didn’t feel at peace with myself.”

But she didn’t get the reaction she had sought.

Friends stepped forward and said, “ ‘Gee, I didn’t know. If you ever need anything, let me know,’ ” Nagy says.

“And that’s the last I saw of them.”

Heads nod as the group weighs Nagy’s words. They have heard it before.

“My friends just asked me, ‘Did your hair fall out?’ ” someone says softly.

But you have to tell them, says Alberto Lopez. When school officials approached him about giving a speech to his school--he was free to choose any topic--he knew it was time to tell people about himself.

He and his family came from Bogota, Colombia, with no money, jobs, relatives or friends.

“We were trying to settle down when I got sick,” he recalls.

It was 1984 and he had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph system. He had two operations, radiation and chemotherapy.

His family was poor and Lopez’ mother had to bring her two other children along on the frequent bus rides and daylong stays at Childrens. When he did get to attend elementary school, Lopez remembers the isolation he felt: “I had to wear a hat, and I was skinny and real fragile.”

But Lopez got well. And, for many years, he didn’t tell anyone about the cancer. His hair grew back, he gained weight. He moved to a new school and made new friends--tough guys who made Lopez forget he was a “Martian.”

“I started hanging out with the wrong crowd,” Lopez says. “I didn’t even feel like a human when I started junior high. I wanted to feel like a regular kid, like a kid who was born here, like a kid who hadn’t had cancer. I got in some trouble.”

In high school, he started attending Teen Impact meetings. “When I started coming here, I felt better. It was really easy to talk here,” he says.

But when it came to telling his “outside” friends, Lopez says he couldn’t do it: “I thought they would reject me or feel weird about me.”

After his speech, Lopez’ classmates were either crying or stunned.

“The best feeling was afterward,” Lopez says. “I went outside and screamed and yelled to the sky. That’s it. It’s over. I got my story out. No one punched me. I felt good about myself.

“My cancer was a secret. But if you at least get it out, you’ll see who will reject you or support you. But you’ll at least get it out.”

They learn the hard lessons early: Know what you can change and accept what you cannot. They learn not to look for answers where there are none. They learn to think positive.

Stanford University was not in Susie Acosta’s future after rhabdomyosarcoma, a type of cancer that arises in muscles, was diagnosed when she was 4. In elementary school, she was plunked down in special education classes because “I was in and out of the hospital so much.”

Acosta recovered and so did her academics.

“In ninth grade I went from special education classes to gifted classes,” she says with a laugh that contains no bitterness.

When she gave her valedictorian speech her senior year, Acosta talked about her illness.

“Cancer has made me develop a more positive view on life,” Acosta says. “I guess there is a feeling of ‘don’t put anything off.’ You know--having cancer at an early age--you want to accomplish all you can now. I became a new person with a new life.”

The high level of achievement among the teen-agers in the group is testimony to the fear they have tasted, says Saltoun-Moran. “They mature faster because they face the possibility of death, which is something adults usually do.”

“They realize that you have to live every moment of life. I think that is a big motivation in helping them achieve.”