Tehachapi student overcomes cancer

Filed: June 13, 2001

By TIM BRAGG
Californian staff writer
e-mail: tbragg@bakersfield.com

Students at Tehachapi High School will enjoy the fruits of their academic success at the school's annual commencement ceremony tonight.

But for one student, those fruits will be a little bit sweeter.

Alba Luz Borreli survived two bouts with lymphoma, a form of cancer, during her high school career.

Despite having to miss school because of cancer treatments, she will graduate with a 3.8 grade point average at the 7 p.m. ceremony in the school's stadium.

Borreli was first diagnosed with the disease during her freshman year.

A friend of her mother's had been diagnosed with the disease, so Borreli decided to get some bumps on her neck examined.

Doctors performed a biopsy and found that they were the signs of lymphoma.

She received radiation and chemotherapy treatment, which temporarily put the disease into remission. But the cancer came back during her junior year.

It wasn't until she received a bone marrow transplant from her twin sister, Luz Maria Borreli, that she was able to put the disease into remission.

"I am really happy that when we graduate, she'll be by my side," said Luz Maria Borreli.

During the time she was fighting the cancer, she was home-schooled, a process she did not like.

"I had a hard time on home-schooling because when there's no one there to make you do your work, it's easy to fall behind," she said.

"It was kind of boring, but it was kind of cool because I got to sleep in late."

Mary Lou Smith, counselor at Tehachapi High, said Borreli has been a symbol to fellow students that one can overcome the obstacles that life sometimes throws into one's path.

"It's great that she has been able to continue with her studies," Smith said.

Borreli plans to attend Cal State Bakersfield in the fall. She's active in Tehachapi High's Future Homemakers of America and Youth Alive clubs.