23
COM Outlook . Spring 2015
ing to get dark out, so I walked
back across the street to the imaging
center,” he said. “When I opened the
door to the conference room, how-
ever, I saw my mom, the radiologist,
my dad, my grandparents, and my
aunt and uncle.”
Although he was unaware of it at
the time, the news was grim, requir-
ing Bral to make an immediate trip to
the nearby hospital. “My dad said we
needed to go to the emergency room
to make sure everything was okay,
but that it would be a quick trip and
I would soon be home,” said Bral,
whose idyllic childhood was about to
undergo a dramatic transformation.
After he was placed in a room in
the back of the emergency depart-
ment and hooked up to a battery
of monitoring devices, the ER doc-
tor walked in with more surprising
news. “He said, ‘I just spoke with
your parents. Unfortunately, we
can’t admit you to the hospital be-
cause we don’t have any empty beds
here. But we have a bed for you at
UCLA’s Mattel Children’s Hospital.’
Five minutes later, an ambulance
team walked in and rushed me into a
pediatric ambulance.”
According to Bral, the following
sequence reminded him of a pulse-
pounding medical TV drama as the
ambulance raced through traffic
complete with flashing lists and blar-
ing sirens. “Once we got to UCLA,
the doors of the ambulance flew open
and an awaiting medical team rushed
me into the hospital,” he recalled.
“That is basically the last memory I
had for the next two weeks because I
was immediately put on a high dose
of steroids and other drugs during
my two-week stay in the ICU.”
The news he was soon to receive,
however, would irretrievably alter
all aspects of the life he once knew.
“I was eventually transferred to
the pediatric hematology-oncology
ward, but I really didn’t understand
what was going on at this point,”
he explained. “One day my team of
doctors sat down at the end of my
bed and said, ‘Daniel, we need to tell
you what’s going on. You have non-
Hodgkin’s lymphoma.’”
Not grasping the gravity of the
words his doctors had just articulated,
Bral responded by asking them what
that meant. What followed were the
three chilling words nobody wants to
ever utter or hear:
You have cancer.
“I
don’t remember asking this, but my
parents, who had been standing by
the door, said my next question after
that was, ‘Am I going to die?’ I can’t
even imagine what my parents were
going through hearing those words
come from their child’s mouth.”
As it turned out, having the PET
scan saved Bral’s life. The cancer,
which had initiated on one side of his
neck, had spread to the other, which
explained the increased swelling
and escalating breathing difficulties.
To add insult to injury, the inhalers
Bral was initially given to treat what
was misdiagnosed as asthma weeks
earlier actually served to nourish the
tumor’s vicious growth. “When I was
hospitalized, the tumor was severely
compressing my windpipe. That was
what the doctors’ saw in the PET
scan. Basically, I would have died
had it not been detected that day.”
Chemotherapy, Isolation,
and Depression
Once his physicians revealed
the devastating diagnosis, Bral was
immediately placed on a long-term
chemotherapy regimen, which lasted
two years and forced him to miss the
remainder of sixth grade and some
segments of seventh grade. “I really
felt like I was on house arrest,” said
Bral of the debilitating treatments
that left him weak, bald, bloated,
and unable to leave his home for
fear of infection. “I went through
two years of nonstop and intense
chemo. To put it in perspective, most
non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients
receive a maximum of three to six
months of treatment.”
Although he was unable to attend
school for a sustained period, Bral,
who is fluent in Farsi, English, Span-
ish, and Hebrew, insisted he keep
up with his assignments while he
was homebound. “I was able to do
a modified sixth grade at home, and
FUTURE PHYSICIAN:
“I have always wanted to
be a doctor,” Bral admitted. “There are pictures
of me as a little kid in surgical scrubs because I
loved playing doctor. As a child, I loved the idea
of being a doctor because I wanted to be able
to take care of and help people.”
HOLISTIC HEALER:
Based on the physical and
emotional travails he has endured on the road
to becoming a medical student, it’s a pretty safe
bet that Bral’s future patients will be the ex-
ceedingly fortunate recipients of his empathetic
nature and broad-based medical acumen.
