Schneider’s docs save boy from Peru

The family of 5-year-old Sebastian Jimenez Pina, of Peru, said that they got their Christmas miracle after their son was able to have brain surgery at Schneider Children’s Hospital.
Last August, Sebastian had surgery to remove a brain tumor in his home country. However, in November a second tumor grew but the physicians in Peru were not able to do anything further.
Sebastian’s parents, Enrique Jimenez and Wendy Pina, contacted their relative and Glen Cove Hospital nurse Luis Pina. He in turn got in touch with the Childhood Brain and Spinal Cord Tumor Center at Schneider Children’s Hospital. They agreed to treat the boy free of charge.
“We saw him far from what was ailing him. We saw a beautiful kid, intelligent, precious, doing things that any 5-year-old would do,” Luis Pina said. “Our hearts were bleeding just looking at him acting so well and yet being so sick.”
Before having the surgery, the family had to overcome the obstacle of getting Sebastian to the United States. Representative Steve Israel from Huntington assisted by contacting the embassy in Peru to help make the arrangements, saying that he was not willing to take no for an answer. The embassy stayed open late in order to get the visas for the family.
The family, which is staying with relatives on Long Island, was given medical visas to come to the United States for a year. Should the treatment take longer, they would need to work with the embassy to extend them further.
“In the case of Sebastian Pina, good people showed the greatness of this country,” Israel said.
Sebastian underwent a surgery that lasted a little less than three hours on December 27 to remove a “large peach-sized tumor.” Dr. Mark Mittler, the co-Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Schneider Children’s Hospital, said that they were able to get everything out that was visible but that there are still remaining cells. He described the surgery as “resetting the clock on his tumor.”
Sebastian’s oncologist, Dr. Mark Atlas, the chief of the Childhood Brain and Spinal Cord Tumor Center at the hospital, said that they are now determining what therapies will best work to prevent the tumor from coming back. Some of the possibilities are radiation, chemotherapy and high dose chemotherapy. He said that typically the therapy lasts between six months and a year.
“We’re very happy to have our Sebastian back,” his father, Enrique, said through an interpreter.
As Luis Pina translated, Sebastian also thanked Israel, who he described as his “amigo,” and the doctors.