Survivor finds strength in family
Eribaldo Uvias hates hospital food. But he loves enchiladas. He feels so strongly about both that when he's at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital for chemotherapy, his dad delivers homemade Mexican food to his room.
It's small things like his favorite food -- and big things like a close family -- that have most aided Eribaldo, 10, in his fight against cancer.
His family as a whole has received succor from the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation, which offers financial aid and moral support to families of kids treated for cancer at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. One of two area charities chosen to benefit from the annual News-Press Holiday Fund, the organization has helped the Uviases pay rent and bills.
Fifth-grader Eribaldo has his full name emblazoned across his school binder in elaborate black-and-blue script. But around his Santa Maria house, they just call him "Eddie."
On a recent Friday afternoon, seated on the living room couch, Eddie works earnestly on a math test. Looking on is home tutor Eileen Trevarrow, who said she visits her student "every day, when he's home" from the hospital.
Mom Haydel and sister Leticia, 17, are nearby. When Ms. Trevarrow leaves, the three sit side by side -- their physical proximity revealing an emotional closeness.
Dressed in blue jeans, a plaid shirt, shiny white sneakers and a baseball hat covering his bald head, Eddie sits quietly, tucked under Leticia's left arm as his mom blinks back tears to tell the story of her son's illness.
It was last June when Eddie first noticed a lump "like a marble" on his neck, said Mrs. Uvias. Soon it had grown more noticeable -- "like a green tomato" -- and hurt when touched, she said.
The first doctor they saw sent them home.
So did the second.
"I said, 'This can't be normal. It's so big,' " said Mrs. Uvias. "But the doctor kept saying, 'It is normal. It will go away.' But it kept growing and growing."
A third doctor suggested a biopsy, she said. Revealing little new information, that test was shortly followed by an MRI and a CT scan.
"The doctor told us, 'You should be prepared for the possibility that he has cancer.'
"Those are things you don't want to hear," Mrs. Uvias said. "You hear that word and you think the worst. The only thing on my mind all the time was, 'Why? Why is he sick? Why is this happening?' I didn't want to accept it.
For us that was a terrible moment."
A moment of hope shortly followed: Doctors said the lymphoma was isolated to Eddie's neck and that "(his) cancer had an 80 percent chance of being cured," said Mrs. Uvias.
He's well on his way. In January, Eddie will undergo his final round of chemotherapy. He'll continue to have regular exams, but he's come a long way from those days last summer when he said he was "just really scared."
"He's been very, very strong," said sister Leticia.
e-mail: sleachman@newspress.com