Cancer is often the worst news any parent could hear about their child. The crushing feeling of seeing someone who’s so young and who has barely experienced life will be admitted to a hospital, and stay there for an indefinite time. Often incredibly unpredictable and sudden, cancer is an instance where there is always no way to prevent it. It is simply a mutation of the cells in our own body, and happens completely at random.
Recently, this incredibly regrettable phenomenon has happened to one of our Macleans students. Yvan Garcia, a Year 9 student who had just started his journey at our school unfortunately came down with Ewing Sarcoma, an incredibly rare cancer that occurs in the bones and the soft tissue around the bones. It is extremely uncommon for anyone to develop it.
We were fortunate enough to get in contact with one of Yvan’s family members, Bien Garcia (his older brother) and his family for them to give their perspective on this deeply troubling journey. Below are statements from Bien & Harjoline Garcia, Yvan’s parents about Yvan and his cancer.
As of 16th August Update – Excerpt from the family's fundraiser:
"First off, a big thank you to everyone that has donated to this page! the love and support shown for the Garcia family is overwhelming and VERY VERY much appreciated!. After a 2 day rest at home, Yvan is back in hospital today to start his second round of Chemotherapy - this is a big one but he is still smiling! After this round the family are hoping that he will be able to go home to recover before the next round in a couple of weeks. Yvan, Bien and Fourth have all shaved their heads in preparation/support for this round of chemo. The family wanted to say a huge big thank you to everyone that has donated on the page as well as those that have delivered meals etc to the house. Words can't really express how thankful they are. Lots of loves!"
As of 24th August Update – Yvan has received a RTX 4090 from Make A Wish!
As of 30th August Update – Yvan has told us that the cancer from his spine is gone from an MRI Scan!
https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/yvan-the-warrior
Disclaimer: All these statements are from the family, and not from the Macleans College News Committee. There are some images below that may disturb some people.
What was Yvan like as a child?
Yvan was born in the Philippines. At the time, our family was living at our grandfather’s house. He was very much spoiled by his grandfather with food and toys that Yvan appreciated very much. He was very healthy, lean, and had all the immunisations needed as a kid. He is like other kids that started out shy with new acquaintances and then became very playful once he is comfortably settled with them. He was an average student when he started out in primary and then started blooming with his academics from Year 5. All sorts of his talents came out when he was at Howick Intermediate. His behaviour developed to be fun loving and kind as he grew older.
What are his interests and hobbies?
Yvan is very much into computer gaming, spending hours in a day playing his favourite games such as Roblox, Geometry Dash, and OSU Mania on his gaming laptop. He loves to play at TimeZone too. Yvan also had a YouTube channel he maintained when he was just 11 years old where he had 4,000 subscribers and got monetised. He created videos which we only dreamed of doing when we were younger. He researched on how he was going to create the videos and how he can get monetised. He earned more than $2,000 from all the videos he created.
Apart from computer gaming, he is interested in cooking, baking, pencil drawing, and painting. Yvan started to do drawings with pencils when he was very young. Attached below are some of the photos of the drawings that he creatively did during his past time and for school. He tried to paint as well, but has not pursued as much yet. Below is an image of his art.
Yvan started to learn how to cook when he was 11 years old. We still remember when he experimented on creating his own French Fries from a raw potato. It was the first time we heard that he was going to use a knife to slice a boiled potato into French Fries. It was not perfect, but it sure had the taste. That’s when we knew that he had a talent for cooking. From then on, he just started experimenting on different foods to cook and bake. He just asks his mum to buy the ingredients.
What does Yvan hope for in the future?
Yvan wants to live in a world where there is peace everywhere without any disasters happening around. He hates war and the aftermath of war on the community and the affected families, especially the young ones. As for himself, he wants to become an excellent animator because he wants his drawings to come to life; wanting them to move and be alive.
How would you describe Yvan as a person?
Yvan has a very lovely smile with a sparkling personality especially when he is hanging out with his close buddies from school. He also sparkles when his favourite topics are discussed like computer gaming and the games he plays. He loves to be funny and even makes fun of himself. During Pink Shirt Day, he dressed up really funnily and was wanting to win the best costume award. He was wearing a pink wig, pink hat, large pink sunglasses, pink bow tie, pink tie dye shirt, and a pink tutu. There was also a time that they were asked to dress-up in a costume in school. He brought a banana costume to school but, unfortunately, the event did not push through. Yvan was so bummed for not being able to wear the costume, he wore it anyway after class. He decided that it would be a good idea to walk all the way home from school wearing the banana costume. Yvan had the best time of his life walking more than a kilometre home because he got positive attention from all the cars that passed him by. Definitely a lot of cars honking as he walked along Ridge Road.
“I want him to have hope.”
-Bien Garcia – older brother
What activities or groups was he involved in at Macleans?
Yvan joined the Rubik’s Cube club and the Table Tennis club. There is nothing much to say as he was just starting Year 9 at Macleans.
How did your family learn about Yvan’s cancer?
Cancer is really difficult to spot and identify – especially at the early stages if you don’t have periodic check-ups with short intervals like every month or every quarter. The diagnosis will happen when the person already feels the pain, but then it is already too late.
Yvan was complaining of a back ache on one Friday morning while still during school holidays. He took two paracetamols – one in the morning and another in the afternoon – to hopefully deal with his backache. The back pain did not go away, and gave him discomfort while lying on bed trying to sleep.
The following morning on Saturday – 13th July 2024, Yvan was brought to the A&E at East Care Urgent Care in Botany for an immediate check-up. It took more than four hours of waiting before he was seen by the doctor. The back pain had already spread to the sides of his belly, and then later on spread to the lower left front of his belly. Upon the doctor’s examination, he felt something hard on the front lower left of the belly. He asked for a second opinion of another doctor and both agreed that there was a mass there. We were immediately sent to the Emergency Department for Children at Middlemore hospital for further investigation.
We arrived at Middlemore Hospital in the afternoon where Yvan was given pain medications to address the back pain. Afterwards, his blood was extracted and was given IV fluids for hydration. An X-Ray was also requested which showed a mass but was not clear enough. They asked us to stay overnight at the Emergency Department so that they can immediately do an ultrasound the following day. The ultrasound confirmed a large mass (14 cm long) that was attached to the left kidney. The doctor immediately sent us to Starship Hospital for further investigation since they suspected it to be kidney cancer.
We arrived at Starship Hospital on Sunday 14th July where Yvan was immediately admitted in their surgical ward. Yvan had a CT Scan the following day where the surgeon clearly saw that the mass was attached to the left kidney. The surgeon immediately scheduled Yvan for surgery on Wednesday the 17th July. It took an entire ten hours for the surgeon to successfully remove the mass along with Yvan’s left kidney. Yvan spent a few more hours in the recovery room before we could get to see him. He went into the Operating Room at 9:30 am, surgery finished at 7:30pm, saw him at 10:30pm, and was back to his hospital room by 11pm. Yvan had a very long slice across his abdomen which is about 40 cm long!
It was not until the following Wednesday 24th July that the Oncologist confirmed to us that Yvan has a very rare form of cancer called Ewing Sarcoma. They still needed to do an MRI and PET CT Scan on Yvan to check if the cancer had spread to any other part of his body. As we all feared, the cancer has spread to his bones, specifically his spine and hip bone. He is forbidden to walk and has to be very cautious when he moves – as he is prone to breaking his bones. We cannot afford for him to have any broken bones at this stage of his treatment.
What was the experience like?
Describing this as a “nightmare” is an understatement. It is one of the most harrowing things you would want to hear from a doctor. It is absolutely crushing and at the same time immensely heartbreaking when you hear that your child has cancer. Being young migrants in this country, we felt extremely alone and helpless. There is nothing really a parent can do to reverse the condition. You can only completely rely on the doctors and the medical team to take care of your precious child. We only have our faith to keep our hopes up high. … It is a very rare disease and has no known treatment yet. However, we are blessed that we are in one of the best hospitals, if not the best, in the world to treat Yvan. We are very thankful that we are in New Zealand.
What has been the most challenging part of the treatment process?
What we found challenging in the treatment process was managing Yvan’s pain from surgery and chemotherapy treatments.
Before the surgery, Yvan was already complaining about the constant back pain which paracetamol cannot relieve. The pain reached a constant eight out of ten scale. He feels the pain even when he is lying down on the bed.
After the surgery, the back pain was gone but this transferred to his long surgical wound across his abdomen with a length of 40cm. It also did not help when he got infected with influenza that made him cough from time to time. The pain went through the roof whenever he coughed. Apart from that, he also had a catheter put in place for him to pee. There was also an epidural pump attached to his back on the spine to manage the pain from his surgical wound but was unsuccessful. There were several pain meds that Yvan took to ease his pain.
In the end, he was given morphine. But, not until his right kidney has recovered from the surgery. Another issue was that Yvan lost appetite and did not eat at all for several days, which caused him to lose 12 kgs in 2 weeks. Then the back pains returned and a new pain in the left thigh emerged out of nowhere. It was inevitable that Yvan needed 14 cycles of chemotherapy which would last for 7-9 months.
Before his chemotherapy, Yvan underwent surgery again to have a Portacath installed, a bone marrow aspiration, and a testicular biopsy which lasted for 4 hours. After the second surgery, Yvan wanted to eat after more than a week of not eating. Yvan then had an MRI Scan and a PET CT Scan to show where the cancer had spread in his body. Unfortunately, the cancer has spread to his bones, specifically his spine and hip bone. This is the reason why he had pains at the back and left thigh. He was immediately given his first cycle of chemotherapy to address the spreading cancer to his bones.
After his chemotherapy, Yvan felt weak and easily got tired from doing simple tasks. Though he had an appetite to eat, he still did not manage to gain back his weight. He was low on magnesium, calcium, and phosphate which were added through his intravenous line. He also had difficulty swallowing his medicines which became a concern for the medical team. Yvan opted to have a feeding tube inserted through his nose. It gave him too much discomfort for the first two days until he got used to the tube while lying down or sitting on a chair. He is currently not allowed to walk or stand for a long time as he is at risk of bone fractures. He will be on a wheelchair if he needs to go to another area.
However, we think the most challenging part of all is waiting for the results of the treatment if it is working or not. We are asking everyone to pray that Yvan responds positively from the chemo treatment.
What would you like the community to know about Yvan’s cancer and the treatment he is undergoing?
Cancer can happen to anyone at any age, ethnicity, background or environment. However, Yvan’s type of cancer is very rare, especially to Asians, which is called Ewing Sarcoma of the kidney. There is no known medicine to treat this type of cancer and chemotherapy will be the next best medicine to use at the moment. We can only hope for the best that Yvan’s body will respond positively to the chemo treatment. No one knows how it happened, where it came from, or what caused this.
New Zealand citizens and residents are very lucky to have Starship hospital that treats children with life-limiting illnesses. Starship is the best children’s hospital in New Zealand and their service and passion is next to none. They have thought of everything for both the patient and the affected family. Apart from the excellent doctors and nurses, they have a physio team, pain team, part team, social workers, play specialists, nutritionists, consult liaison team, palliative team, and pharmacy specialists to take care of everyone.
What message would you like to share with other parents about cherishing their time with their children?
Parents always want the best for their children and make a point to plan for their future. We assume that we have all the time in the world to make up for whatever shortcomings we have with them. However, no one can ever be prepared for cancer. Once the bad news is heard, all the plans change and the world goes upside down and sideways. Actually, your whole world comes to a complete stop before crumbling down. Well, at least that is how we felt. It is only then that you realise that we have not spent enough quality time with them. All the time we thought we had has now seriously shortened. This changes everything, especially your plans. Don’t wait for an illness to be upon your children before you give them your time. Give them all the time and proper LOVE that they deserve and more while you still can.
How did Yvan take the news about his illness?
Yvan is a brave and positive boy who took the news of fighting the illness very well. He went through some very scary procedures that can make even grown men worry and cry. Yvan had no complaints and successfully received the treatment with minimal complaints. What person does not complain about pain anyway? Honestly, we were the ones who were more worried and scared than him. He made us feel that everything will be alright and that he will get through this in time. Yvan was just patiently waiting to recover from this illness and showing us that this is just a setback where he can easily bounce back. He is simply amazing.
Some statements have been edited for grammatical clarity.
The Macleans College News Committee is wishing the best for Yvan Garcia and his family for a speedy recovery. If you are able to donate to his family through the link provided, please do so. Cancer is incredibly gruesome for anyone to go through.
We wish Yvan Garcia and his family to be well.
16th August, 2024
Written by Emma Li, statements and photos from the Garcia family, edited by Mr Packer
