By:Angela Marshall
Cancer fundraiser held in honor of South Side student
Heather Busse melted into the hug of friend Rob Nagy. It felt good. It wasn't long ago that Heather had been banned from touch for many months. She watched people greet each other with a kiss or squeeze of the hand and craved the same physical contact.
But now, after several years of battling cancer, Heather is in
remission. And because of her desire to help find a cure for everyone faced with a similar battle, the student government at South Side High School held a fundraiser in her honor on April 4.
Heather, now a senior, was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 1996 at 13. The mass was found on a routine X-ray for pneumonia. But Heather had known something was wrong with her long before that. "I was always out of breath and sleeping after school."
Her doctors did not right away diagnose the mass as cancer, but when it grew, Heather was taken in for an emergency biopsy. Her parents, Richard and Kathy, went straight to the library to find out everything they could, according to Heather.
For the next two years, she was in and out of the hospital. She did not go to school. She regularly received blood transfusions and
chemotherapy. She gained weight and her hair fell out. "I looked like a chipmunk," she said.
Heather was the only teenager in her ward and roomed with four little girls. She played games with them and tried to make them happy. "Unfortunately, all four passed away."
She was particularly close to a girl named Danielle. It was for
Danielle and other girls like her that Heather wanted to raise funds for cancer research.
Then came remission, the first time. Heather returned to school for 10th grade. It was bittersweet.
When she had first left school, her junior-high teachers sent group cards from the class, but no one came to visit her in the hospital and few kept in touch during the trying years of chemo. "I wasn't visited in the hospital by anyone," she said.
Over the next year, she grew healthier, went to camp and tried to figure out how to fit in.
Then came the ominous words, "Your counts are low."
Anyone who's battled cancer knows what that means.
"You always have it in the back of your mind that it can come back. And unfortunately it did," Heather's mom said.
However, it was not a return of NHL. This time it was leukemia. She needed a bone-marrow transplant.
Heather is one of the lucky ones. Her sister Patricia is a perfect
match. After the transplant, Heather had to stay in the hospital for six weeks, receiving full-body radiation. Because of the damage to her immune system, physical touch was banned until October.
Her food had to be microwaved for three minutes, on high. Chicken nuggets resembled hockey pucks.
But it was a success, and on Nov. 16, Heather's family celebrated the anniversary of her transplant as a second birthday. "I was reborn," she said.
"She had a tough time at the beginning but she rallied and met the struggle," Mrs. Busse recalled. "She's a tough kid."
The transplant wasn't just a new beginning for Heather. The entire Busse family is recovering from the emotional strain of the cancer, Mrs. Busse said. "It's been a heck of a struggle."
Heather must remain in remission for four more years to be considered cured. But to her, the future is nothing but bright. When people say they feel sorry for her because she has cancer, Heather stops them. Instead, she focuses on what she gained from the experience.
Over the years, Heather has had many wonderful experiences because of the generosity of others. A wish foundation sent her and her family to Florida. Many stars, mostly from sports, visited her in the hospital. A group even donated a computer so that she could use the Internet to contact other patients. She gave it back when her family bought one of its own.
Heather even takes her hairdo changes in stride. Before the cancer, she had straight, brown hair. After the first round of chemo, it grew back blue/black with banana curls. Now, she has tight curls that are black/brown. It doesn't seem to matter to her. She even said, "It's not bad being bald, especially in the summer."
When Heather heard that the South Side student government was holding fundraisers for other diseases, she asked them to think about the one that affected her and at least two other students.
So, last Wednesday, Heather and some other students sold gold-ribbon pins to raise money for the National Childhood Cancer Foundation. By 10 a.m., they had $300. At the end of the day they had earned $750 and more is on the way. The pins will still be available in the guidance office through the beginning of May.
Next year, Heather plans to study culinary arts at the New York
Institute of Technology.
In addition to helping raise money for research to end the disease, Heather is trying to educate classmates in how to respond to the news that someone they love has cancer. She speaks to health classes and tells the students how hard it was for her when no one visited.
Although she understands that fear of the unknown was part of the motivation that kept people away, Heather hopes no other child will be faced with the same feeling of loneliness she had.
