Family and friends join little girl's fight against brain cancer
SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) -- A Bay Area mother is speaking out about a deadly childhood brain cancer in hopes of raising awareness and finding a cure.
Marisa Martinez says her daughter Zamora Martinez Lusinchi was diagnosed with it two months ago. Martinez refuses to give up hope for her daughter.
She tells KTVU she is fighting to save her own child's life and the lives of hundreds other children who die from the disease each year.
Zamora celebrated her eighth birthday Thursday. Until recently, the third grader would swing on monkey bars and run around like other children.
But now, she is slowed by DIPG, short for diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a fast-growing tumor in the brain that is resistant to chemotherapy and afflicts children almost exclusively.
Zamora says she feels sick at times and she doesn't like how it makes her feel.
"She can't raise her right arm. She can't swallow like she used to. She can't talk like she used to," said Martinez.
Zamora's mother, attends says during the summer while visiting family in France, the 8-year-old suddenly started suffering from double vision and had trouble with her balance.
"DIPG is so violent and so deadly, that what happens to a child is that they lose their ability to walk," said Martinez.
She says the prognosis from doctors is grim. DIPG is almost always fatal.
Martinez says her daughter is now in what's called the honeymoon period, but that Zamora is not in remission.
"The tumor has been shrunk down and hopefully it will buy her some time -- three to six months," said Martinez.
After six weeks of radiation treatments , Zamora was finally able to return to school at Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy this week, rejoining her second grade class.
Martinez is also a kindergarten teacher at the school, but she has taken this semester off to be with Zamora and help her with her fight.
On Thursday, Zamora is celebrating her life with friends. With the support of her school community, Zamora and her parents are taking life one day at a time.
"I just say, 'You're going to fight this. You are! You're going to be one of those statistics and we're going to fight this and we're going to help other children as well,'" said Martinez.
Zamora's mother wants to raise public awareness for DIPG and encourage funding for research to find a cure.
In the meantime, Zamora says she's glad to be back at school, telling KTVU her favorite subject is writing.
Zamora says she likes to write stories, perhaps with the happy ending of being able to celebrate another birthday.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to raise funds that will allow Martinez to take Zamora to Bristol in England where specialists are making advances in a new trial treatment of DIPG.
Friends and the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy community are also holding a block-party fundraiser in front of her school on Saturday to help Zamora and her family.
Martinez, also a talented musician who frequently uses music in her kindergarten classroom, will be performing at the block party herself, reuniting her band Pink Sabbath for the fundraiser.
Other performers include Ronkat Spearman playing a special acoustic set with his band Katdelic, noted guitarist Eric McFadden (who Martinez played with in the band Liar) and guitarist George Johnson of the legendary '70s funk band the Brothers Johnson.