Miracle survivor gets trip to D.C.
Published: March 16, 2005
Shea Garcia will be missing a few days of kindergarten this week. But his teachers are sure to excuse his absence.
Shea, who has spent most of his five years of life in Miami Children’s Hospital fighting leukemia, will be touring Capitol Hill as a Florida ambassador for the Children’s Miracle Network. He will be one of 50 children, one from each state, to visit the White House and meet U.S. senators and singer LeAnn Rimes.
Shea is ready for the much-deserved vacation. He has a new camera — a gift from the hospital’s foundation — and he knows exactly what he wants a picture of: ”George Bush and snow,” he said shyly.
Shea will travel with his parents, Eddie and Ayo Garcia, and his older brother, Omari.
”December 30, 1999, is probably the day we will never forget,” said Eddie Garcia, speaking of the day Shea was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia — one of the most aggressive forms of leukemia.
“We lost our son four times, and the Lord and the hospital gave him back to us four times.”
After he was diagnosed, Shea had chemotherapy treatments for about five months. But in December 2000, Shea relapsed and had to go back on chemotherapy. Just seven months later, he relapsed for the second time and his doctors decided he would need a bone-marrow transplant.
A donor was not easy to find, since his family members were not matches. Once placed on the national registry, it took four months before a donor was found in Tampa.
After the transplant, Shea became sick with the CMV virus, which causes infection after transplantation and can cause pneumonia and organ complications.
Less than two years later, Shea was diagnosed with a tumor in his nasal cavity. He underwent more chemotherapy and when that didn’t work, he received lymphocytes from the same donor in Tampa.
”We practically lived in the hospital,” Shea’s mother recalled. “But it didn’t bother him. He actually likes going to the hospital. It’s where he grew up.”
Now, Shea only goes to the hospital for check-ups. The youngster is still taking many medications because of his low immune system.
”But that is just minor stuff,” Ayo Garcia said. “We can deal with that.”
Dr. John A. Fort, the director of bone-marrow transplantation at Miami Children’s Hospital and one of the doctors who treated Shea, said the 5-year-old is in remission and doing well, but his doctors will still monitor him.
”We’ll watch him for years to come,” Fort said.
Shea was chosen for the Children’s Miracle Network’s program — Foresters Champions Across America — because of his experiences at the hospital. The network is a nonprofit organization that raises funds for children’s hospitals across North America, and Miami Children’s is a member of the network and nominated Shea for the program.
In the meantime, the Garcia family is just excited to have a vacation. ”We just happen to be fortunate to have Shea here with us today,” Eddie Garcia said. “I think it’s a miracle from God.”
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