From The Orange County Register
By Susan Christian Goulding / Staff Writer
Claire Nakaki, a senior at Foothill High, will graduate with her class this month and start LMU in the fall. She was diagnosed with bone cancer last fall and has spent much of the year at CHOC. (Michael Goulding, OC Register Staff Photographer)
Last July, just weeks before she would embark upon her senior year, Claire Nakaki joked with a friend about the competitive landscape of college applications and attention-grabbing “personal statements.”
“I told him, ‘It’s like you have to get cancer to have something to write about,’” Nakaki remembers.
A few days later, the all-around star student at Tustin’s Foothill High was, in fact, diagnosed with cancer – osteosarcoma, in the bone of her left leg.
“Finally, I had a a good topic,” Nakaki wryly noted.
Rather than tackling a slate of four Advanced Placement classes and playing varsity volleyball, Nakaki would spend her final year of high school either undergoing treatment at Children’s Hospital of Orange County or resting at home.
It’s not what she’d had in mind when she was elected to ASB leadership the spring before. But it’s what she got – as the preternaturally mature girl quickly came to accept.
“I find it easier to be positive than to be angry,” Nakaki said. “It helps you heal.”
Along with her classmates, Nakaki will walk – with a slight limp – at graduation on Friday. And come fall, she will head off to her dream college, Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Last week, she was back at CHOC for maintenance, so to speak. After a grueling regimen of surgeries and chemotherapy, Nakaki’s cancer is in remission – but a recent skin graft left her in need of pain management.
Nakaki went to her doctor last summer complaining of knee pain. At first, both attributed it to strain from her years as an athlete. But eventually, an MRI revealed a mass.
“There’s never a good time to get cancer, but the start of your senior years has got to be the worst,” said Nakaki’s school counselor, Lisa Hermanson. “We have so many fun activities for seniors. I felt awful for her.”
Nakaki was forced to drop her AP classes for a pared-back schedule. Hermanson periodically visited so Nakaki could keep up enough to graduate on time.
“She was bedridden and weak, but she did it all,” Hermanson said.
“Doing it all” included mustering the energy to accept the crown as homecoming queen last October – on crutches and wearing a wig.
Soon afterward, Nakaki’s mother, Suzanne, suddenly needed open-heart surgery. The youngest of three siblings, Claire was left pretty much to her own devices with her mom miles away at UCLA Medical Center.
“I had to learn to be my own health advocate with my doctors,” Nakaki said. “I tried my best to be persistent. It resulted in a lot of control over my own health, which felt very empowering.”
At times, Nakaki noticed a disconnect from her peers. So, as the saying goes, she made new friends but kept the old – through the Adolescent and Young Adult support group at CHOC.
“Now I have my cancer friends and my school friends,” Nakaki said. “My cancer friends just get it.”
Kara Noskoff, a child life specialist at the hospital, met Nakaki soon after she checked in. When her hair began falling out during chemotherapy, Nakaki asked Noskoff to shave her head. Later, Nakaki counseled another teen patient.
“Half an hour later, Claire was already mentoring other girls on the floor,” Noskoff said. “Throughout this journey, her ability to process this very challenging event has been amazing. She exudes confidence.”
Nakaki will occasionally return to CHOC for checkups. Other than that, she looks forward to a typical college experience living in a dorm with a roommate she met on Facebook.
Cancer is just a blip on her radar screen.
“Missing one year of my social life is not going to be a detriment,” Nakaki said. “I had 17 years of a normal life, and now I’m going to have a hundred more.”
Contact the writer: sgoulding@ocregister.com
