Raising Hope, Cash for Sick Child

Aja Tate’s family is living on hope and longshots.

They’ve exhausted conventional medical procedures in their battle to keep the 6-year-old Carson girl alive.

Six months ago, Aja was a spunky, spirited kindergartner. Now, after unsuccessfully battling an inoperable tumor lodged in her brain stem, Aja sits on her parents’ living room couch, partially paralyzed, her body swollen from steroids. She breathes through a trachea tube, unable to speak.

The doctors say there is little hope. But her parents won’t give up. They want to take Aja to Houston, where a controversial doctor treats cancer patients with an experimental gene therapy.

The procedure, which the Tate family’s insurance won’t cover, costs about $26,000 to start and up to $14,000 more a month for the next year. Aja’s father, a manager at a truck parts company, can’t afford the bill.

Ronda Jones, a fifth-grade teacher at Aja’s school, Annalee Avenue Elementary, won’t give up, either.

After learning about Aja’s ailment two weeks ago, Jones swung into action, organizing a medical fund to send the sick little girl to Texas.

At the teacher’s urging, the Carson city treasurer started a trust fund. Students at Annalee Avenue donated their allowance money. Aja’s Girl Scout troop auctioned off Beanie Babies. Churches held raffles to help.

In one week, the community raised more than $30,000--enough to start the treatment. Now Jones is trying to organize a benefit concert to come up with the rest of the money for Aja.

“It’s tragic to think you have to give up hope on someone so young,” said Jones, 32, mother of a girl the same age as Aja. “I just can’t see dollars and cents dictating whether a child lives or dies. This is a baby.”

Aja is the fifth of eight children in a close-knit family who teasingly called her “Miss Aja,” because she always liked to be the center of attention. She was a bubbly, active girl who loved to ride her bike around the backyard and play games on the computer.

Then in June her parents noticed unusual symptoms: Aja’s eyes were crossing and her right hand was paralyzed. At Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, doctors did an MRI and located a brain tumor the size of a quarter. Because of its location, deep in the brain stem, doctors told the Tates they could not safely operate. They said Aja might only live another year.

She began radiation treatment. Then in August the tumor began to bleed and Aja slipped into a coma.

“We were preparing everybody to say goodbye,” said her mother, Joyce Tate, 40. “People kept on praying. . . . then she woke up.”

But after the radiation was finished, Aja’s tumor hadn’t shrunk significantly. The doctors said there was nothing more they could do. The Tates brought Aja home.

“I don’t think they expected her to last the weekend,” Tate said.

While Aja was in the hospital, Tate heard from another mother there about Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, a cancer doctor widely praised by families who say he helped cure their loved ones when everything else failed.

Burzynski treats patients with what he calls “antineoplastons,” synthetically produced versions of chemicals that are naturally produced by the body. These proteins act like triggers, he says, turning off the genes that cause cancer and turning on those that suppress malignant growth.

About 60% of his patients experience some benefits from antineoplastons, he says, although other doctors have disputed his claims.

Burzynski’s practices have also generated fire from state and federal authorities who say he has been prescribing unapproved drugs. After a lengthy court battle with the federal Food and Drug Administration, Burzynski was ordered last year to conduct clinical trials of his treatment to submit to the FDA.

For Aja’s family, however, just a shot at a cure is enough.

“It’s our last hope,” Joyce Tate said. “I feel like after all she’s been through, it can’t harm her. I just want the best care possible. I’m willing to try anything to prolong the life of my child.”

She went to Aja’s school to ask if the staff could help raise money for the procedure. The principal and Jones came to visit Aja.

“I was in a rush to get out of the house so I could cry,” Jones said, recalling that visit. It made her reflect on her own daughter and her mother, who is battling breast cancer.

“I’m sick of this cancer,” she said. “I’ve had enough of it. If I am able to help this family, I consider it a blessing.”

After two sleepless nights she took the day off from work and started making calls to radio stations, local newspapers and TV stations. She visited churches, knocked on doors and called everyone she knew, begging for money.

The school rallied together, organizing a fund-raiser that collected about $7,000. Other donations poured in to the trust fund.

After an Inglewood-based entertainment group offered help, Jones decided to organize a benefit concert for Aja on Jan. 23. She’s lining up rap stars, gospel singers and comedians. Now all she needs is a place to hold the event.

Jones’ involvement has been “an answer to a prayer,” Joyce Tate said. Aja’s illness has run her ragged. Her husband works full time while she stays at home, juggles the needs of her younger children, never taking her eyes off Aja, who sits silently on the couch. At night, she lies awake, thinking about her daughter’s struggle.

“Some days I just don’t see how I can keep going,” she said. “Then just seeing her smile is enough for me.”

With the money Jones has helped raise, the Tates hope to be in Houston with Aja by the weekend.

“After all she’s been through,” Tate said, “God didn’t bring her this far just to take her away.”