Family fights adversity with faith

May 22, 2006

By Christine R. Danielewicz

“Mom,” 7-year-old Anthony called from the back seat of his family’s blue 1995 Honda minivan.

Gina Ruffa turned her attention from the familiar landscape along Interstate 79 to her firstborn son. The Ruffas had traveled this stretch of the highway from Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh to their home in Erie, Pa., many times; yet this trip seemed the longest. It’s a part of the country where overcast skies are common, but today it wasn’t the overcast skies that dampened Gina’s spirits.

Hopelessness had rung in the voice of the oncologist who had just delivered to Tony and Gina Ruffa the prognosis for their first-grader’s third bout with cancer: untreatable.

“I see the gates of heaven opening,” Anthony announced when his mother turned to listen.

Anthony’s words pierced the silence and his mother’s heart. The gates of heaven opening — so often understood as welcoming a soul from earthly life to a heavenly home — indicated to Gina that this must be Anthony’s final battle against cancer. She thought heaven must have been preparing for his arrival.

It was five years ago to the day that Anthony was first diagnosed with a rare form of cancer affecting the sinus area: Rhabdomyosarcoma, a very rare soft tissue sarcoma in Anthony’s nasopharynx, too large to be operable. Only five in 1 million children develop this type of cancer. The prognosis left Anthony with only a 50 percent chance of survival.

Gina remembers that she and Tony reacted with total devastation. How can this be? Impossible! they thought.

Just a few months before, Tony and Gina had experienced a renewal of their faith. They had always gone to church, but they had become more aware of God’s personal interest in their lives and more impressed with a desire to commit all areas of their lives to honoring and serving Him. They anticipated the abundant life that the Scriptures promise. Instead, they began to feel their way through what Gina describes as a “dark tunnel,” searching for a way to break cancer’s deadly grip on their curly-headed toddler.

“It was like going through a sudden death,” she says. “We felt denial, anger, disbelief, and then we had to come to the point of gradual acceptance because we knew we had to fight this thing. There was no room for self-pity.”

After researching treatment options available around the world, Tony and Gina settled on a skull-based surgery pioneered by Dr. Victor Schramm, who was treating patients in Denver. To prepare, Anthony was first admitted to Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. He underwent standard induction chemotherapy, chosen because it required less hospital time and a more carefully evaluated success rate.

Because Anthony was so young, a mediport was inserted under his skin to be used as an access for all injections and testing.

“We held him down all the time,” Gina says. “He was constantly poked and pricked like a little pincushion.”

Throughout all of this, Gina also struggled to maintain a healthy pregnancy. Baby Ginelle Ruffa arrived two weeks early at Magee Women’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. As they celebrated this gift of life, the Ruffas prayed that Anthony would have a chance to grow up with his little sister. Anthony and Gina were each released from their respective hospitals on the same day.

“Anthony was emaciated,” Gina says. “His hair was coming out in clumps. He was very weak, very thin; he couldn’t keep anything down.”

The tumor had shrunk 60 percent. Anthony was now a candidate for surgery. The family packed for the trip to Denver.

Gina sent detailed newsletters to friends, families and church groups with specific instructions on how to pray for Anthony. She outlined upcoming procedures, risks and side effects, problems to be prayed against and miracles to hope for. Gina being a pharmacist and Tony beginning his career in medicine, both parents were painfully aware of every medical mountain they faced.

In June 1993, one of those mountains threatened to crush their hopes. At midnight, just six hours prior to his scheduled surgery, Anthony developed a high fever. His blood pressure dropped and he developed a serious infection. He was put on intravenous antibiotics for two weeks before Dr. Schramm could perform the 10½-hour surgery.

During the month the Ruffas spent in Denver, it was a comfort to be together as a family. Gina continued nursing 4-month-old Ginelle. Post op, Anthony spent a week in ICU, having lost more than a liter of blood in surgery. He underwent maintenance chemotherapy for the rest of the year.

“We made the very difficult decision not to radiate him at his young age because we were concerned about learning disabilities, cataracts, facial deformities. This was against all leading authority recommendations,” Gina explains.

The family clung to faith during Anthony’s year of remission.

In March 1995, one year past his last round of chemo and exactly two years since his first diagnosis, concerns loomed as Anthony began to experience breathing complications, fatigue and weakness. Tests revealed a 3-by-6-centimeter mass in Anthony’s right lung.

Before the family returned to Denver for more chemotherapy, Tony tearfully pleaded with his church family at Erie’s First Assembly of God during Sunday services. “We really need your prayers,” he told the concerned families.

The harsh drugs brought on mouth sores, nausea, fevers and infections. Intravenous feeding became necessary. Anthony’s chances for survival were now less than 5 percent. This time the treatment plan required surgery involving a lung wedge resection (removal) of the tumor and an autologous stem cell transplant.

A device similar to a dialysis machine would remove a number of blood cells from Anthony’s body. These cells would then be subject to lethal doses of chemotherapy — four and a half times the normal dose. They would then be put back into his body with the hope that in time they would graft.

Anthony’s bone marrow transplant carried less risk of complications because it involved cells from his own body, but he was hit hard with complications. He developed severe blood loss for eight days. Again he was in septic shock and spent two and a half weeks on a respirator in ICU with no white cell count. His liver was diseased, both lungs collapsed, and he required an abdominal drainage tube.

The Ruffas sent urgent prayer requests to relatives, friends and church in Erie. The Sunday evening service was in progress when the call came in at First Assembly. About 200 people were in attendance. They rose from their pews and joined hands, forming a circle inside the sanctuary, interrupting the service to cry out in prayer for Anthony.

“He was hooked up to every machine imaginable in ICU,” Gina remembers. After eight days, he finally started to graft cells into his own body. “He miraculously made it out of ICU.”

Oncologists expected Anthony to die. He had lost all muscle tone and couldn’t talk for two and a half weeks.

Thirty-eight days after the transplant, Anthony was finally sent home.

“I remember the first worlds he uttered when he walked into his bedroom,” Gina says. “He said, ‘Thank You, Jesus, for bringing me home from the hospital.’”

Anthony continued intravenous feeding for sixth months and tube feedings after that.

Soon Anthony had a baby brother, Victor Anthony (meaning Victory for Anthony). Still susceptible to infections and unable to be around children who had not had chicken pox, Anthony was tutored for preschool by First Assembly Christian Academy’s Joan Gibson. In September 1996, he entered Miss Gibson’s kindergarten class, along with 23 other boys and girls.

In March 1998, those same boys and girls would join the fight for Anthony’s life.

A telephone prayer chain was activated when Anthony’s family physician became concerned about a lingering cough and referred the family to Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh again for further testing. The results showed a 2-by-3-centimeter mass in Anthony’s right lung.

“This episode was five years to the date from his original diagnosis,” Gina says. “We had gotten our bad news on March 11, 1993. Had it not been for the lung recurrence diagnosed on March 11, 1998, Anthony would have been considered cancer free. He would’ve been at that five-year mark.”

The disease was now aggressive and widespread according to the doctors in Pittsburgh.

“All we heard for two and a half weeks was that Anthony was going to die,” Gina says.

Treatment options only offered temporary control and some comfort from the agonizing pain to be expected as the cancer progressed.

“It’s just not fair,” Anthony lamented to his parents.” Why do I have to get the cancer?”

His teachers began to gather resources to help his first-grade classmates cope with the loss of their friend when the time came. One of those friends, 6-year-old Meagan, stood before the congregation at Grace Baptist Church in nearby Millcreek Township and requested prayer for her friend.

Back at First Assembly, Pastor Jack Risner led the adults and youth in prayer for Anthony in the main sanctuary the Sunday morning following the diagnosis. Children’s Ministry Director Renee Majchrzak strummed her guitar while about 100 children knelt at the altar in the chapel and prayed for Anthony’s healing during the children’s service.

“It was so difficult the third time because we’d already gone through this twice. Three times was just too much for anyone to bear,” Gina says.

Gina struggled with a sense of divine betrayal and wondered why Anthony’s previous recovery could not have been the end of their trial.

“But I came to realize I can’t be mad at God,” she says. “I have to accept Him and trust Him regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the outcome. I have to trust Him regardless. I had to remember His love for Anthony is greater than mine.”

In Pittsburgh a third CT scan of Anthony’s chest was taken prior to surgery to verify the location of the cancer. The results were surprising. No tumor or mass showed up on the X-ray. Surgery was cancelled. The Ruffas were sent home.

On Easter Sunday morning, Tony and Gina stood before the congregation at First Assembly once again. Gina held up a briefcase packed with her five years of research on Anthony’s condition and told the congregation that she felt God was telling her that she did not need this anymore.

And the gates of heaven Anthony saw on the way home from Pittsburgh after his third diagnosis?

Tracy Williams, Gina’s friend and prayer partner during this time, prayed intensely after she heard the Ruffas were battling cancer again. She was reading the Book of Daniel. At one point in response to the prophet’s anguished prayer, an angel tells Daniel, “Your words were heard, and I have come in response to them” (10:12, NIV). Williams says she envisioned the angels leaving the gates of heaven to go do battle on Anthony’s behalf.

Anthony is now 15 years old, and the Ruffas have also been blessed with another daughter, G.G., short for Giana (God is gracious) Gabrielle (God gives me strength).

“Faith is best tested when it has to be exercised,” Gina reflects. The Ruffas continue to trust God for His presence, comfort, mercy, grace and “protection on the pathway” as Anthony grows.

“We can go through the valley of the shadow of death as we run toward the Light,” she says, “because the Light will be there every time. Keep running until you reach it. Never stop.”

Her family clings to Psalm 66:10-12: “For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.”

Christine R. Danielewicz is a member of Christian Life Assembly in Camp Hill, Pa. (Paul Wislocky, pastor). She attended First Assembly of God in Erie, Pa., during the time of the Ruffas’ ordeal. Endorsed by First Assembly Pastor Jack Risner.