GREG LUCA | STAFF WRITER
EDCOUCH — Sieanna Ortiz wanted to sit on the bench with her Edcouch-Elsa teammates during Tuesday’s volleyball match, but she wasn’t sure her legs would be strong enough to handle the ups and downs during timeouts.
Her chemotherapy cycle leads her to have good weeks and bad weeks. Although last week was one of her best, the plethora of medications and antibiotics still created an array of side effects, including the possibility for numbness in her legs.
So Ortiz watched from near the top of the bleachers, all the while wishing she could be back on the court like she was as a freshman last season. She came though the team’s summer league on track to play a major role as a sophomore before a diagnosis of stage 2 Hodgkin lymphoma put not just her volleyball season, but her life, in doubt.
“My life went from doing activities and being active, to basically being in bed,” Ortiz said. “My life was sports. And to find out that you’re going to have to be out for six months or three years, I thought my life was over.”
SHOCKING NEWS
As the summer wore on, Ortiz’s friends, family and coaches started to see signs that something was off. Her mother, Marisol, and E-E volleyball coach Ofelia Griffith noticed weight loss. A friend, Sam Montelongo, noticed Sieanna’s sometimes violent coughing during driver’s education classes. Sieanna’s cousin and teammate, Odessa Mata, saw that her laugh was different.
“We could tell that it changed, but we never thought she had cancer or anything like that,” Mata said.
After feeling pain in her knee and a shortness of breath, Sieanna visited a doctor. Eventually, she was sent to Doctors Hospital at Renaissance for a chest X-ray, which revealed that her lung was full of fluid — two liters of which was removed that afternoon. A few days later, on Aug. 19, a biopsy confirmed that she had Hodgkin lymphoma. The cancerous tumor sat in the middle of her chest.
“I knew it was going to be life changing, I just didn’t know how she was going to react to it,” Marisol said. “Knowing that she had to quit her activities was a major blow.”
When she first heard the diagnosis, Sieanna was terrified. She went by what she heard about cancer on TV, she said. But doctors quickly made an effort to calm her nerves.
Hodgkin lymphoma is a rare cancer — about 9,050 new cases will emerge in the United States in 2015, according to the American Cancer Society — that attacks the immune system. According to the National Cancer Institute, the five-year survival rate for stage 2 Hodgkin lymphoma is about 90 percent.
“When I heard that, it was relief,” Sieanna said. “It was a little bit of hope. When she said it was six months to three years, I said, ‘OK, I can do six months.’ I don’t want to do three years, but I can do six months.”
THE BAD WEEKS
Treatment started the day after the diagnosis. A port was surgically implanted to ease the injection process, and then chemotherapy began.
Five treatments on Day 1, two treatments on Day 2, and a final treatment on Day 3.
“About an hour after I get the treatment, it’s just a bunch of throwing up,” Sieanna said.
The fourth through seventh days she spends at home, resting. On Day 8, she heads to a clinic for another treatment.
“That one, it just burns inside me,” Sieanna said. “Like my chest is burning.”
From there, Sieanna goes through a daily regimen of injections and medications at home until Day 21 starts the cycle anew.
Marisol, a pediatric nurse, said she and her daughter have not been separated since Sieanna first landed in the hospital on Aug. 11. The pair, plus Marisol’s eight-year-old daughter, Catalina, have moved in with Marisol’s sister to be away from the rodents and wildlife that live in the fields around their home. Her sister’s house is newer and more sterile, Marisol said.
Marisol’s two older children, both in their 20s, have stayed in the original home.
“All of us were under one roof, until this happened,” Marisol said. “It kind of split us apart.”
Before Sieanna turned 15, her hair ran down past her waistline. Eventually, she cut it off to donate it to a charity supporting cancer research.
By the time she started chemo in August, it had regrown past her shoulders. Within a week, it all fell out.
“When she lost her hair, she was scared. She didn’t want to let us see her,” Mata said. “I told her, ‘We’re your closest friends. No matter what, you’re still beautiful, and I’m going still going to love you, whether you have hair or not.’”
THE GOOD WEEKS
During the seven-day rest period that ends each cycle, Sieanna enjoys many of the same comforts she did before cancer.
She can go to the movies or walk through the mall, but only at off-peak hours, when a smaller crowd means less exposure to germs for her sensitive immune system.
She can keep up with her schoolwork from home, with a teacher visiting for two hours, twice per week, whenever Sieanna’s hectic schedule of treatments and appointments allows it.
She can spend time with her three closest friends since grade school: Mata, Montelongo and Jackie De Los Santos, another E-E volleyball player. Two weeks ago, to celebrate Sieanna’s birthday, they made her a sweater and a collage of photos from their times together. “Whenever she’s with us, we’re always laughing and messing around just like we used to,” Mata said. “We try to take her mind off the fact that she has cancer.”
Every third week, Sieanna can also watch Edcouch-Elsa’s home volleyball matches, getting a glimpse of what she calls the most difficult part of the entire process.
“Not being able to play,” Sieanna said. “I can do with the hair loss. There are wigs. I can deal with the home-bound (schooling), and the treatments. But just not being on the court.”
KEEPING HER CLOSE
Sieanna may not be able to play this season, but Griffith is adamant that she’s still a part of the varsity roster.
Before every match, “No. 3, Sieanna Ortiz” is announced just the same as any other player.
Portraits of each Lady YellowJacket are lined up numerically above the entrance to the gym. In Sieanna’s space is a picture of a purple awareness ribbon, with the text “No one fights alone.”
That same message is printed on the back of the group’s “Team Sieanna” t-shirts.
Posters honoring her have been taped above both the home and away stands, with messages such as “I never knew bravery until I met Sieanna.”
“That means they’re there with me,” Sieanna said. “It’s hard, but they’re there.”
That was the message Griffith said she spread to the team in the days following the news of Sieanna’s diagnosis. Don’t shy away from the problem. Face it head on, and be there for your friend and teammate in need.
When Sieanna is at the games, Griffith sees a major impact on her players. They see that she’s fighting cancer, and that she’s winning.
“That motivates us to win,” Mata said. “We’ve dedicated the season to her.”
When E-E took down Donna on Tuesday to secure the outright District 32-5A title, Sieanna lingered near the side of the court as her teammates gathered for a team picture. Almost instantly, they signaled and yelled for her to join the shot. Sieanna worried how her pink shirt would fit in with E-E’s black jerseys, but her teammates had no problem sticking her right in the middle.
“It felt good,” Sieanna said. “They still know I’m a part of the team.”
PROGRESS
By next season, Sieanna hopes to be playing with the team again. After her second round of treatment, tests showed that the Hodgkin tumor had shrunk by 80 percent. A secondary tumor had emerged behind the original, but it proved to be malignant.
“We’re not finished yet, but we’re almost done,” Sieanna said. “It’s good news.”
Today, as Edcouch-Elsa opens its postseason with a matchup against Sharyland Pioneer at Valley View, Sieanna enters her fourth, and hopefully final, round of chemo.
If tests show the expected results, Sieanna will move into radiation therapy. For how long, she’s not sure. And even that will not be the end of the road. Sieanna faces at least a year of continued medications and five years of monthly checkups.
But she’s already set her sights on a return to play with her first love: softball.
“I want to be back for softball season,” Sieanna said. “Not for preseason. I’ll condition during preseason. But for district, I want to be back. I want to go back to school, and to finish the year with my friends.”
After watching Sieanna fight as hard as she has to get to this point, Griffith said she expects to have the sophomore’s strong arm and long reach back on the volleyball court next season.
Marisol will need to be 100 percent sure Sieanna is healthy before she consents to a return to play, but she said the softball season is a realistic goal. Following a grueling schedule of treatments, getting back into playing condition hardly seems like a hurdle.
“Seeing her bounce back the following day for another day of chemo, and another day of chemo, I know it’s doable,” Marisol said. “If she gets the OK from her doctor, if she has to work 24 hours per day to get back in shape, I know she will.”