Nuestra Comunidad: Former St. Jude’s patient becomes employee

33,000: fundraising events for St. Jude, organized through ALSAC

Information: stjude.org

María Hultine remembers the exact moment she was diagnosed with cancer.

“It all began when I started falling asleep in class and overeating. Then I started getting bruises. My parents and teachers attributed it to my development, because I was always very active in class. But then they realized something wasn’t right,” she said.

“They took me to a pediatrician, but the doctor couldn’t say for sure what I had. So we went to the hospital for more tests. I remember that it was Holy Week, and a lot of people were on vacation. The day after the analyses, the doctor called my parents and told them that I had cancer: chronic myeloid leukemia, and that I needed an urgent bone marrow transplant,” said Hultine, who hails from Honduras.

Since then, Hultine has become increasingly involved with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where today she is employed as a bilingual regional development manager. Her work focuses on raising funds for the hospital through ALSAC, a fundraising and awareness organization which belongs to St. Jude and has 33 offices throughout the nation.

For Hultine, the countless hours that she and her team dedicate to the cancer cause represent more than just a job: it is a way of life and a priceless opportunity to give back.

“I know that my job is important, because I work for an organization that is changing the lives of children with cancer all around the world. There is no better place than St. Jude,” added Leandra Cartagena, a regional bilingual development representative for ALSAC.

Hultine, for her part, is in charge of coordinating events such as radio marathons, galas, golf tournaments and other charitable activities in the community, with the end goal of raising funds for St. Jude. It is the only hospital in the country which offers treatment to children who suffer from severe cases of cancer, completely free of charge.

After spending much of her childhood receiving treatments at St. Jude, Hultine developed a close and personal relationship with the hospital and ultimately decided to change her status of patient to that of employee.

“When I finished my treatment, I immediately went in for a job interview,” she explained, adding that the road to get there was long and arduous.

“No one in our family had cancer, but a family friend told us about St. Jude and my mother said, ‘let’s go there.’ That same morning they admitted me to intensive care. I was there for five days, unconscious, because I had so many carcinogenic cells that they couldn’t begin treatment like that. So they had to take all my blood out, divide it, remove all the carcinogenic cells and put [the blood] back in me,” said Hultine. Eventually, with enough treatments, she became cancer free.

For Hultine’s parents, the path to recovery had its own set of challenges. Her mother did not speak English, so she had to wait until María would wake up from her treatments in order for her daughter to interpret what the doctors and nurses were saying.

“My mother would always have me go ask how much we owed. At first, she didn’t believe it was all free,” said Hultine, laughing.

Indeed, for every dollar that is donated to St. Jude, 85 percent is earmarked for treatments and cancer research, and the remaining funds are set aside for ALSAC and other administrative issues.