STUDENT PROFILE: CANYON DEL ORO

Doing battle with leukemia

Senior perseveres through school despite burdens of chemotherapy

Jesse Latas has a purple scar right above his heart. It's a reminder of the chemical injected into his body to stop cancer cells from multiplying in his bone marrow.

"That's why your hair falls out," the 18-year-old said. The chemotherapy stops cells from producing DNA.

A year ago, the Canyon del Oro High School senior went to the emergency room because he was having muscle spasms all over his body.

Two weeks later, doctors did a blood test and found out that he had leukemia.

The next thing he knew, he had spent five months in the hospital.

"Chemo started soon after I was admitted. I don't remember much," he said of his treatment.

He resumed school after his hospital release - a little thinner and with no hair - but with the resolve to live life to the fullest.

"I want to be a teen-ager and have fun," he said.

"My parents didn't let me do as much, after my treatment," Latas added.

"They wouldn't let me go hiking every weekend. They were just really worried."

But their worries didn't stop him from engaging in another of his loves - cooking.

"I've cooked since I was 9 years old," he said.

This is Latas' second year in the cooking program at Canyon del Oro. He finds that cooking is an easy way to make people happy. But it's also an art, he said.

"Jesse has managed to stay in school, at first attending every other day, and now, back to full time," said Geri Herrera, a counselor at CDO.

"He has continued his Army Junior ROTC cadet activities, as well as his hiking and cycling. He never complains, he's always very matter-of-fact and often humorous when talking about what he is going through," said Herrera.

In March, the Make-A-Wish Foundation sent Latas and his family to Hawaii.

The CDO senior volunteers at the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System - commonly known as the VA Hospital - has won numerous ribbons from JROTC including perfect attendance, expert rifleman, leadership in education, and he is the commander of the Raiders, a junior Special Forces unit.

He plans to attend Pima Community College, then the University of Arizona to study history.

Eventually he wants to join the military. When he enlists, he'll be able to say he already has a purple heart.