After 21 years, Amy De La Cruz still remembers in detail the day in 2003 that her little girl was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Her daughter, Sabrina Schiermeyer, was 10 when a school nurse contacted De La Cruz to inform her that her fourth-grader was suffering from headaches, dizziness and nausea. After work, De la Cruz took her girl to an urgent care facility. After blood and urine tests, she was sent for an MRI.
Following long and anxious hours, De La Cruz received a call from a doctor who recommended she take her daughter to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood. At Reagan UCLA Medical Center, the mother and child learned that Sabrina’s dizziness and headaches were caused by a medulloblastoma — a cancerous brain tumor in the back lower part of her brain called the cerebellum.
It was a diagnosis that changed their lives forever.
“We didn’t have time to think about it, but we had time to ask questions,” De La Cruz remembers. “It was a lot to deal with.”
In the following weeks, the Sabrina underwent two brain surgeries that confirmed her tumor was malignant. She had to undergo extensive chemotherapy and radiation.
In the years since her daughter’s terrifying diagnosis, De La Cruz said she has hardly had a chance to properly process how her daughter’s sickness impacted their lives.
De La Cruz has three other children and what has helped her keep going, she says, is the support of her husband, Hector, who quit his job to take Sabrina to endless appointments, and support from other family members, relatives and friends.
After her brain surgeries, Sabrina was left with slight paralysis on her left side, and the side of her face drooped. She had to learn how to walk again. But she could still use both hands. Sabrina showed significant improvement, leaving her doctors in awe of the 10-year-old’s resilience, but she needed intensive physical therapy.
As fate would have it, two years before their daughter’s diagnosis, De La Cruz was hired as a facilities manager at the Centre for Neuro Skills in Tarzana — not knowing that the center would become a key part of her daughter’s long journey. Sabrina was referred to the Centre for Neuro Skills, which specializes in the rehabilitation of younger stroke and brain injury patients.
“It takes a village,” De La Cruz said. “Between family and friends and co-workers and therapists here at the (Centre for Neuro Skills), we all are the village.”
Sabrina underwent endless physical therapy sessions at the Centre for Neuro Skills, and each week she met with her elementary school teacher who helped her keep up with her peers at school.
When Sabrina and her mom came home from therapy sessions, De La Cruz made sure Sabrina did more exercises. Even when the youngster was tired, De La Cruz encouraged her to practice the skills she learned at the Centre for Neuro Skills center, like walking and working on her balance.
“I took those skills and tried to apply them as much as I could at home,” De La Cruz remembered. And that created a lot of tension between the mother and daughter.
“She would get upset and throw things at me,” De La Cruz remembers.
Sabrina Schiermeyer, now 31, recently looked back her constant frustration and anger as a young girl. She had problems with balance and vision. And because her face drooped slightly she couldn’t smile normally — or even cry normally.
“I was very angry with the fact that I didn’t look like other girls and couldn’t do things that other kids could do,” Sabrina said. “Seeing other kids, especially my younger cousins, made me very frustrated and angry all the time. A lot of the time I took that out on my mom.”
But her hard work, and her mother’s push to stick with years of physical therapy, paid off.
Sabrina learned how to live independently. She earned her associate degree in social work from College of the Canyons in Valencia. And recently she was promoted to be a maintenance team lead at Walmart where she works full-time. In her free time she loves baking and spoiling her siblings with gifts.
Recently, De La Cruz celebrated her 21st anniversary working at the Centre for Neuro Skills. Watching the progress of the patients there — some of them as young as Sabrina when she was diagnosed with her brain tumor — gives her a sense of relief.
She finds it hard to believe the most troubling season of her life is over.
“In all these years, I still haven’t cried,” this mother says. “You just had to keep going. You just had to make it work.”
