Patient of the week – Abigail Perez

By St. Jude/PIO
Sept. 28,, 2009

5 years old

Diagnosis:

Abigail was found to suffer from acute myeloid leukemia in 2007.

Abigail’s Story:

Little Abigail had always been the picture of health, but one day during a family vacation, one of her eyes began to bulge. Concerned, her parents, Marcelle and Billy, took her for an examination at their local hospital. On July 16, 2007, the family learned Abigail suffered from acute myeloid leukemia. Doctors gave her a 50 percent chance of survival.

Hurricane Katrina had wreaked havoc on the hospital in their hometown. Garbage collected in the hallways. No one came to remove the food trays from Abigail’s room, and ants moved in. “We went into survival mode,” Marcelle said. Abigail’s parents wanted a research hospital to provide cutting-edge treatment for their daughter. Their search led them to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The local doctor provided the referral, and St. Jude took care of travel arrangements.

At St. Jude:

At St. Jude, a nurse greeted the family. “Are you Abigail?” she said. “We’ve been waiting for you.” Abigail was instantly put at ease and loved the hospital. When they got into their room at Grizzlies House, Marcelle told her husband, “I think she’s going to make it.”

Abigail’s six-month treatment protocol provided five intense rounds of chemotherapy, necessitating inpatient stays. Each time before chemotherapy, she received a bone marrow aspiration and spinal tap. In addition, Abigail received a combination of intravenous and oral antibiotics to strengthen her immune system.

The battle against cancer affects the entire family. One day, Marcelle broke down on the elevator, and it was a St. Jude maintenance man who provided words of comfort. “There’s no crying today, miss,” he said. “We do miracles here, so you just dry up those tears.” It was exactly what she needed to hear. These small, random acts of kindness accentuate the treatment at St. Jude and make the difference between this and other hospitals – at least for the Perez family.

“No other hospital in the world compares,” said Marcelle. “Everyone from Dr. Ribeiro to the maintenance staff is on a mission.”

St. Jude is the only pediatric cancer research center where families never pay for treatment not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. “Insurance doesn’t matter here,” said Marcelle. “If she needs a test, she gets the test.” It’s a good thing too. Abigail’s treatment costs a minimum of $20,000 per month; complications increase the cost. “I really believe the treatment costs could have bankrupted us,” said Marcelle, “but what choice did we have? Thank God there is St. Jude where parents do not have to choose between the life of their child and the huge financial burdens of skyrocketing healthcare costs.”

Marcelle says they are “evangelical about St. Jude” and calls it the “Disney World of hospitals.” She appreciates so many things about the hospital, from their lodging at Target House, where every need is anticipated, to the hospital’s school program.

Abigail now tests negative for leukemic cells. She’s done with chemotherapy and returns to the hospital every four months for follow-up. She’s an active girl who loves swimming, riding her bike and watching shows like Dora the Explorer, Wonder Pets and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Source: St. Jude

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Wish of the Week – Maggie

By MWF/PIO
Sept.29. 2009

Greeted with a fragrant lei and a friendly “Aloha,” 10-year-old Maggie from Boynton Beach felt right at home during her wish trip to Hawaii. It was her ideal wish because of her love of the outdoors and her desire to have fun with her family. There’s so much to do and see in Honolulu and Maggie, who is battling leukemia, tried her hardest to do it all.

There was time for plenty of water activities including snorkeling in Hanauma Bay, with its horseshoe-shaped beach lined with mountains. To make her swim even more special, a turtle poked its head out to say aloha. She and her father also took a private surf lesson with the Hawaiian Fire Surf School at Kalaeloa Beach where the waves are tame enough for beginners to tackle.

At a traditional luau, Maggie and her family learned the hula, played island games and made their own leis. Maggie got a turtle painted on her arm and tasted the local specialty called poi. She had one word for the paste-like Polynesian favorite – “Eck!”

Having studied Hawaii in school, Maggie revisited her history class with a tour of the Battleship Missouri Memorial in Pearl Harbor. She even trekked to the top of Diamond Head, a dormant volcano, that she said is “like a crater.” She took a bus tour of Oahu, where she saw lots of breathtaking mountain and water views.

Maggie’s mother said, “It was a fantastic time for our whole family. Maggie had a ball every day.”

Wish Granters: Elaine Oswald & Carolyn Pucci
Referred by: a family friend
Adopted by: Jewelers for Children3

Source Make A Wish Foundation

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Soldier of the Week – Marine Corps 1st Lt. Elliot Ackerman

by Dan Samaria
Publisher/YC
Sept. 30, 2009

Editor’s Note:
Hometown: Washington D.C.
Awarded: Silver Star

Insurgents had a relatively free run of Fallujah the six months preceding November 2004. With little or no Coalition presence in the city, they had turned the urban landscape into a warren – like maze of fortified positions, booby traps, and sniper positions. The terrain could not have been more demanding for the Marines called in to clear the city. First, however, they had to establish a foothold, a task that fell in part to then-2nd Lt. Ackerman and his platoon. On November 10th, he and his men entered the city in what became a six-day struggle to open operational lines.

Insurgents attacked from numerous directions as Ackerman’s Marines pushed into the city. Twice in the early moments of the shooting, Ackerman braved enemy fire to pull injured Marines to safety – and then organized their evacuation. But in the midst of the battle, the vehicle sent to recover the injured could not find their position. Ackerman charged from his cover into the open, dodged what his citation calls a “gauntlet of deadly enemy fire,” and directed the vehicle to the Marines.

Later, as Ackerman and his team were clearing a building, he noticed that his Marines were exposed on a rooftop. After ordering them down, he took their place and began marking targets for tanks as insurgents fired at him from all directions. Despite suffering shrapnel wounds, Ackerman continued to direct the attack, and coordinated four medical evacuations. “There is only one alternative,” Lt. Ackerman said later. “It is to do it or not do it.” For his leadership and actions, Ackerman was awarded the Silver Star on Jan. 12, 2007.

Editor’s Note:

Hometown: Washington D.C.

Awarded: Silver Star

We would like to know what you think? dan@goldcoastchronicle.com

Source: Our Military

Officer of the week – Police Officer Vincent G. Danz

Remember September 11, 2001
Angels Among Us

Police Officer Vincent G. Danz
Shield 2166
ESS-3
10/27/2001

Police Officer Vincent G. Danz
Shield 2166
ESS-3
(recovered)

Vincent G. Danz was a member of the New York Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit’s third squad in the Bronx. The elite unit’s officers are experts in areas like psychology, rappelling, scuba diving, first aid and marksmanship. Officer Danz liked the excitement and challenge of the E.S.U.

Officer Danz, of Farmingdale, N.Y., was also a husband, and a father of three daughters, including an 8-month-old. With the two older girls, he liked to watch “SpongeBob SquarePants,” a Nickelodeon cartoon.

“He was a special breed,” Felix Danz said of his brother, who at 38 was the youngest of nine children. “I’d always ask him if he had any good jobs lately. He’d say, ‘Yeah, I had this subway “pin job,” ‘ where some poor soul was taken out by the subway, or even worse, still alive.”

“The E.S.U. guys are the ones who go on the tracks, find some way to lift up the train and get those people out,” Mr. Danz continued. “He wasn’t boastful. He wasn’t one of those guys with the swelled chest at the bar. He loved his work and the guys that he worked with. They would die for one another. I think that goes globally for the N.Y.P.D. My brother and his partner went into the trade center without any questions. They knew what to do and how to do it. Unfortunately, this thing was bigger than either of them.”

- The New York Times 10/27/2001

Source: NYP Angels

Firefighter of the week – Battalion Chief Battalion 57 Denis A Cross

By Dan Samaria
Publisher/YC
Oct. 1, 2009

 

Running for a Memory

The race seemed more important than ever. For 18 years, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Dennis Cross competed in the Turkey Trot, a 5- kilometer race held in Flushing Meadows, Queens, where firefighters ran for charity. Now he would be absent.

His wife, JoAnn, used to operate a fitness studio and induced him to run with her. But once the children arrived, she stopped running. That was 15 years ago.

Yet she felt an unshakable need to have a Cross in the Turkey Trot to honor her husband, a battalion chief of Battalion 57 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. So she concluded she would be that Cross. And she would recruit additional firefighters to run, too, in honor of all the firefighters lost in the attack.

Chief Cross, 60, known as Captain Fearless, lived with his wife in Islip Terrace, N.Y. His favorite saying was, “Take care of the men and the men will take care of you.” Mrs. Cross was going to take care of his memory. She vowed she would finish this race and then begin an annual memorial run for her husband next April 27, the anniversary of the day they met.

For nine weeks, she trained, building up endurance. Race day came. She ran, as did her four children. She finished in 29 minutes. “I thought I was going to do it in 45 minutes,” she said. “I was proud of myself.”
Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 29, 2001.

At age 60, Dennis Cross had spent nearly two-thirds of his life as a firefighter in New York City.

And retirement wasn’t on his calendar anytime soon.

“He wanted to be the first to put in 50 years on the job,” said JoAnn Cross, his wife of 37 years.

Along with so many of his brethren, Cross’ career was cut short Sept. 11. The battalion chief for Battalion 57, based in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, was killed when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.

His body wasn’t recovered until a week later.

“The first three days it was more than hell,” said his wife. “When they found him on the seventh day, that was such a relief because we could bring him home. So many of our friends haven’t been able to do that.”

As is common in the profession, fighting fires was a family affair. Cross’ father, Charles, was a New York firefighter, as is his only son, Brian.

Cross joined the department in 1963 after returning home from a two-year tour in Vietnam, where he served in an Army communications unit, JoAnn Cross said.

In the department, Cross was widely admired as a gutsy firefighter and, later, as a respected leader.

“He was a quiet guy, but powerful,” JoAnn Cross said. “When he made captain, they called him Captain Fearless.”

He was promoted to battalion chief in 1993.

A frequent runner who kept himself in excellent shape, Cross was looking forward to competing in an annual 5K race around the Thanksgiving holiday in Flushing Meadows, Queens. Now, JoAnn Cross hopes to turn the race into a fundraiser for a local charity that aids burn victims.

Cross is also survived by three daughters and three grandchildren.

An estimated 3,000 mourners, mostly firefighters, attended Cross’ funeral Sept. 22 in Islip Terrace, Long Island, where he lived.

Profile courtesy of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.

Source Legacy

Officer of the week – Police Officer Jerome M. Dominguez

Remember September 11, 2001
Angels Among Us

Police Officer Jerome M. Dominguez
Shield 10003
ESS-3
1/11/2002

Police Officer Jerome M. Dominguez
Shield 10003
ESS-3

Jerome Domínguez had gone diving off the coast of Long Island with some police pals who were also his friends outside the job.

After exploring the chambers of a shipwrecked boat, they glided up slowly and started popping up, one after another, to take their places on their boat.

But they noticed one of them, another police officer, was missing. And, without much hesitation, Domínguez was the one to jump right back in the water.

Returning all the way to the bottom, Domínguez found his friend lying unconscious inside the dilapidated ship with insufficient oxygen left. Pulling him up, Domínguez swam toward the light of the surface, alternatively taking on and off his oxygen mask to share it with the unconscious man.

Risking his own life, Domínguez saved his pal’s more than two years ago.

But it was not the first time, and it would not be the last, that the decorated New York City cop offered all he had for the sake of others. In fact, Domínguez did it regularly, whenever he encountered people in danger or on duty as a member of the department’s elite emergency services unit.

Domínguez, a West Islip resident who grew up in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx, was at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and, according to reports from colleagues to his family, was making his way upward in the building when the north tower collapsed. He remains missing.

One of two sons of devout Catholic parents who spend much of their time trying to spread the faith, Domínguez, 37, had his own sense of mission.

” I once told him, ‘Jerome, don’t strain yourself so much’,” recalled his mother, Gladys Domínguez of the Bronx. ” And he said, ‘Look, Mommy, you save souls and I will save bodies.’”

After graduating from Mount St. Michael Academy in the Bronx, Domínguez entered the police academy in the mid-’80s. Following his July 1985 graduation, he became a patrol officer for a local precinct in the Bronx. Two years later, Domínguez, also in the Air Force Reserve, joined the highway division.

During the following years, he became committed to his job of helping people on the roads. Even when off duty, Domínguez carried power-cutting and other tools in his vehicle to help stalled drivers or to extricate victims at accident scenes, his relatives said.

Once, while heading to Texas for Air Force training in 1999, Domínguez encountered an overturned school bus with several children inside. He quickly took charge and rescued more than a dozen children before the bus burst into flames. His feat earned him praise, and he appeared on a television news showand was mentioned in newspapers that day. The Air Force offered him a permanent job, but he preferred an offer he got from the NYPD to join the emergency unit.

” He enjoyed himself helping people in some way, morally or physically,” said his father, Geronimo Domínguez, a physician who hosts a bible reading television program in Spanish. ” … He was very courageous.”

Besides diving, Domínguez left time to cruise on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, sometimes along the Eastchester Bay coast near his parents’ house, formerly a waterfront home and fishing retreat of New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia.

In his last conversation with his father, some days before Sept. 11, Domínguez discussed the idea of a heavenly place for souls to rest in happiness after death. His parents find comfort in their strong belief that Domínguez is already there. ” He loved helping others, and there isn’t in the Bible or anywhere else a greater love than that, giving your life for others,” his father said.

- New York Newsday Victim Database 1/11/2002

Source: NYP Angels

Patient of the week – Asia Franklin

By St. Jude/PIO
Sept. 27, 2009

9 years old

Diagnosis:

Asia was found to suffer from acute lymphoblastic leukemia in October 2006.

Asia’s Story:

Asia has always been the type of child who doesn’t focus on the future. Instead, she relishes each day as it comes. Like most little girls, she loves to color and play with her dolls. But when she was just 7 years old, Asia began developing a set of alarming symptoms that had her family worried whether she’d have a future at all.

Asia’s nose began to bleed, followed by leg pain and fevers. Then, she lost her appetite. As the number of symptoms grew, her mother, Ramona, began to suspect something was very wrong. A trip to the local children’s hospital provided the worried family with a diagnosis, but no relief: Asia suffered from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common type of childhood cancer. As soon as the diagnosis was made, Asia’s doctors referred her to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

At St. Jude:

Asia immediately started a two-and-a-half-year treatment protocol for ALL. She comes to St. Jude once a week for chemotherapy and is expected to finish her treatment in early 2009. Although Asia’s family was overwhelmed with her diagnosis, they were relieved to learn that the survival rate for ALL is high. When St. Jude opened in 1962, the survival rate was 4 percent. Today, it is 94 percent. “Initially I was in shock,” Ramona said of learning Asia’s diagnosis. “But now I don’t worry quite so much, I don’t shed quite so many tears.”

St. Jude has provided the family with peace. “From the day we arrived, it felt like home,” Ramona said. She is very grateful for the hospital’s generous supporters, whose donations help provide her daughter’s treatment and care, as well as housing, transportation and food. Not having to worry about such things has been a huge relief for the family.

Much to her family’s delight, Asia continues to thrive. She is in third grade and loves to sing and dance. “It’s been a wonderful experience,” Ramona said. “We’ve never lost hope.” For Asia, a bright-eyed girl who loves to live for today, St. Jude is helping to ensure her future.

Source: St. Jude

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Soldier of the Week- Army Major Lisa Carter

by Dan Samaria
Publisher/YC
Sept. 25, 2009

Editor’s Note:
Hometown: Atlanta, GA
Awarded: Bronze Star

When Lisa L. Carter was an Atlanta postal worker caring for her two-year-old daughter, she had a strong feeling she was capable of more. Little did she know that, almost two decades later, she would be in command of more than 90 soldiers in the sands of Iraq. Nor would she have predicted that a Bronze Star would be pinned on her uniform in 2003 for her extraordinary service in support of the 555th Maintenance Company.

Spurred on by colleagues, she joined the Army Reserves in 1987 and was forever changed when she saw a black female officer and thought, “If she can do it, surely I can do it.” From that day forward, she tirelessly reached for excellence. In 1996, she received her bachelor’s degree in social work from Georgia State University and earned Army lieutenant gold bars through the school’s ROTC program, all the while raising a family as a then-single parent.

Around the Christmas holiday of 2002, the 2/43 Air Defense Artillery Battalion and the 555th Maintenance Company received their deployment orders to Iraq with 80 percent of the company on leave. Carter had a goliath task ahead, and she embraced it. As the 555th Maintenance Company Commander at Ft. Bliss, Texas, she meticulously, safely, and effectively rail-loaded the entire company of 51 pieces of equipment in record time. Under her leadership, the unit’s support of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force aided more than 65 contact missions, recovered 45 vehicles, and repaired more than 35 pieces of equipment within a four month period. Able to maintain a grueling operational tempo, her personnel were instrumental in the battalion’s 95 percent above readiness rate during three critical weeks of intense combat. For these stellar accomplishments, then-Captain Lisa Weems (Carter) was awarded the Bronze Star.

Now back in the United States as member of the Defense Department’s Why We Serve program, the major is engaged in telling her story to fellow citizens. From a hard-working single mother in Atlanta to a distinguished Army major, Carter now sums it up: “Service members know that this is their job and responsibility – to serve.”

Editor’s Note:

Hometown: Atlanta, GA

Awarded: Bronze Star

We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Source: Our Military

Firefighter of the week – Battalion Chief Battalion 8 Thomas P DeAngelis

By Dan Samaria
Publisher/GCC
Sept. 23, 2009

In the Thick of Things

Five years ago, when Thomas P. DeAngelis was promoted to battalion chief in the New York City Fire Department, his wife, Patty, told him: “You’ve been running into burning buildings for 22 years. But you’re a battalion chief now, so you won’t have to do that anymore.”

In her heart, she knew better. Tommy DeAngelis would never send a firefighter into a building he had not personally entered and checked out. Around the East 51st Street firehouse in Manhattan, he was known as “Chuckles” because of his sunny good humor and his lust for life: sports, cooking, sailing, carpentry, writing. But when the alarm sounded, he would suddenly become all business.

Sometimes he would kick around the idea of retiring in a year or two — he was 51 — maybe to take up writing children’s books. But, again, Mrs. DeAngelis knew better. “He loved being a firefighter way too much to ever quit early,” she said.

On Monday, Sept. 10, she had lunch with him at their home in Westbury, on Long Island, before he headed into Manhattan to pull a 24-hour shift. “See you Tuesday night,” she said as he left, giving him a kiss. “Be careful.”

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 16, 2001.

Source Legacy

Wish of the Week – Jason

By MWF/PIO
Sept.21. 2009

Gym class, soccer, the Florida Marlins and more – these are some of 10-year-old Jason’s favorite things. During his battle with leukemia, he often turns to sports as an escape. So what did this sports fanatic from Palm Beach Gardens wish for? He wished for his bedroom to be converted into a sports memorabilia room so he could surround himself with his most prized possessions. Jason, who has been collecting memorabilia for years, has enough sports gear and autographed items to rival the local sporting goods store. A lot of preparation went into transforming his bedroom into a sports lover’s dream and he didn’t mind a bit. Jason’s room was outfitted with a new coat of blue paint, carpeting, sports-themed bedding, a huge corner bookcase unit, custom shelves, frames and display cases. There’s even a customized wall cling of Jason. He said, “My room is awesome now. I love it!”

Wish Granters: Barbara Colsky & Gabrielle Strati
Referred by: St. Mary’s Hospital
Sponsored by: Mr. & Mrs. Patrick Martucci

Source Make A Wish Foundation

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

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