Cancer Care

When offered one wish, most of these children pick a vacation in Walt Disney World, to meet Mickey and Pluto and take a breather under the Florida sun.

Last spring, the Make-A-Wish Foundation Inc. of Connecticut got in touch with Carlos Brantley’s mother. The foundation wondered what would make Carlos happy.

Carlos was a bit older, already a senior at Newington High School. Then 17, the first medical problems of his life had begun a few months earlier, when an MRI found 50 cysts the size of cherry tomatoes in his torso.

“Carlos is a big fan of Quentin Tarantino,” Pilar Brantley said. “That would be to me, as a mom - oh my God, if they could have this kid meet this guy, Carlos would be in heaven.”

But Carlos’ feelings on bliss had always been childlike, simple. Being able to go back to school was comfort. Hopping on the trampoline in the backyard was joy. When his mom told him about the wish, he was furious, almost embarrassed by the thought. He started yelling, Pilar remembered.

“I’m not sick!” The staples had already been plucked from his skin, at least 40 of them down the center of his abdomen, where doctors had cut through muscle to get to his organs. “There are kids who need this more than I do, I’m fine! You call them back and cancel everything!”

“It hurt me,” Pilar said. “I was like, speechless. I was just staring at him.”

The next day, however, Carlos changed his mind.

What he wanted was a summer party for the town of Newington to thank everyone - nurses, teachers, friends and strangers - who helped him during his illness, peritoneal mesothelioma, an extremely rare, incurable form of cancer.

He asked for a Moon Bounce, sumo suits, “a bunch of inflatable games.” He wanted a Velcro wall, and there were snow cones, ice cream, cakes and a DJ. He got the microphone and told the grownups to jump up and down, to forget about work. Carlos’ wish was for everyone to remember what being a kid is like.

“I think as you grow older, you forget that kind of stuff,” Carlos said. “The whole thing I went through helped me realize just to not let go of that, and appreciate the simple things.”

Carlos is 18 now and a psychology major at Central Connecticut State University. On April 28, the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Connecticut, which grants wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions, celebrated the chapter’s 1,500th wish in two decades and remembered Carlos’ party at Mill Pond Park, right by Newington Town Hall, on Aug. 19, 2006. It was unlike any other wish the group has given.

A year earlier, in August 2005, Carlos was an incoming senior and captain of the cross country team at Newington High when he started feeling sharp pains in his stomach, as if someone was jabbing him, sometimes for two hours at a time. Doctors suspected he had irritable bowel syndrome and prescribed medication, the family said. But Carlos was still doubled over in pain as school began.

Then one weekday morning, Carlos stayed home on the couch. This was unusual: He ran cross country and track, was a drummer in the marching band, took part in jazz band and some chamber orchestra, acted in musicals, got A’s and B’s in honors classes.

His mom left to work a lunch shift at Yanni’s, a pizzeria in town. When she got back, Carlos was still on the couch. “And that’s not Carlos at all,” Pilar said.

They went to the emergency room at New Britain General Hospital.

The doctor took awhile with the MRI results. When he returned, it was to talk about the 50 large cysts, that it looked like cancer and that an ambulance would take him to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford for surgery.

“I wanted to start screaming, but I didn’t, because I didn’t want to make it worse for Carlos,” Pilar said. She noticed a tear on his face before he turned his head away.

In Hartford, the cysts were pulled out of his body like rosary beads.

Turns out, those cysts were not cancerous. But after removing them, doctors saw what looked like pimples on his diaphragm, all over his liver, and on other organs. Those were malignant for peritoneal mesothelioma, which is diagnosed in the U.S. about 100 to 500 times a year. Doctors are trying to figure it out.

source : www.courant.com