9-year-old girl with leukemia wants to be a teacher

Janae Kyla Leighann Regio

One wouldn’t think that 9-year-old Janae Kyla Leighann Regio has an illness, as she is livelyand playfully described as fat by her mother, Janellyn Aseñas.

Despite her age, the young girl still drinks milk from a bottle, Aseñas told the Inquirer with a laugh. When Regio was diagnosed with acute lyphoblastic leukemia in October 2016, she would throw up and lose her appetite after undergoing chemotherapy. All that she could hold down after each session was a bottle of milk.

Aseñas said they learned about her daughter’s condition just two weeks after she started going to day care at the age of 3. Regio was often racked with fever and complained of weakness and pain in her legs.

“After coming home from school, she would hit her feet, saying her knees hurt,” Aseñas added.

Initially, she was afraid to have her daughter undergo chemotherapy, but the young girl’s condition worsened to the point where she could no longer walk.

“It was really my daughter who chose to undergo chemo,” she said. “At first she didn’t want to, but eventually she told me, ‘Mama, I want to undergo chemo, I want to be able to walk.’ When she sees the other children at Philippine Children’s Medical Center running around, she also wants to run around. [She wants to be just like] those kids who are now healthy after chemo.”

After undergoing treatment, Regio’s condition has improved and she was soon able to walk again. She was supposed to have her exit chemotherapy last year but a checkup showed that she had suffered a relapse. Currently, she needs 12 more cycles of chemotherapy with a total cost of P771,957.60.

Aseñas has stopped working as a sales clerk to take care of her daughter so the family relies on the P537 daily salary of her partner, Jetjet Regio, a merchandiser, for their needs.

Despite their current situation, Aseñas said her daughter remained upbeat.

“She really shows us how strong she is,” she said, adding that the young girl was doing well in her studies as a Grade 1 student. Regio dreams of becoming a teacher.

Those who want to help her can deposit their donations in her grandfather’s BDO account (Gregorio P. Aseñas, account no. 003570175930). Her mother can be contacted at 0920-6152370.