By ROBERT LINNEHAN
Baseball unfortunately will have to wait for a young man who has had his collegiate career postponed after a diagnosis of leukemia. The Voorhees community is being asked to rally around Richie Suarez, 18, a recent graduate from Eastern Regional High School who will have to put off college for another year.
Just three days before Suarez was ready to begin his higher education at Rowan University, he was given the bad news. The family had taken Richie to see his physician after the young athlete complained of nausea, fatigue, and a pounding, persistent headache he had suffered through while on a vacation in Florida.
His mother, Denise, remembers answering the phone the next day and a doctor telling her to take Richie to an emergency room right away. His white blood cell count was at 155, he explained, and he needed to be tended to.
“He was diagnosed two days before he was moving into the dorm room. Our living room was packed up, everything ready to go to move him in on Sunday, Sept. 29,” she said. “When he called they told us to take Richie to the ER right away. The doctor really didn’t want to tell me what he was looking at or what he expected, but I pushed him and he finally told me what he was thinking. I literally fell down to my knees.”
Suarez went from being a scholarship athlete to a patient at Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania in the span of 24 hours. Denise was struggling with the diagnosis and wondering what was going to happen to her son when her best friend, Debby Brescia, took action.
Brescia immediately made sure the Suarez family had a freezer stocked with food at CHOP so the family didn’t have to rely on just hospital food to get by.
Drew Brescia — Debby’s son — and Richie have been close friends since they were 8 years old and were both star athletes on the Eastern Regional High School varsity baseball team this past season. Brescia said she heard about Richie’s diagnosis just half-an-hour after she had dropped Drew off at Rutgers University.
After supplying the family with food, Brescia realized she had to do more. Soon after she learned of the diagnosis she went to TD Bank and created the “Richie Suarez Get Well Fund,” a benefit for the Suarez family to help with mounting hospital costs.
“Denise and I have been sitting at baseball games since our sons were 8 years old. I dropped my son off at college and a half-an-hour later I heard the news,” Brescia recalled. “I said, well I have to get something going here, this is a catastrophe. Out of my love for the family I went over to TD Bank and set up the account and just hoped the community would be very generous and come together in this time of crisis. Richie is like my second son.”
So far the community has been very generous and many donations have been made to the fund, Brescia said. A few have even brought her to tears.
Mayor Michael Mignogna has mentioned the fund several times in his weekly “Mayor’s Column” and has urged residents to donate.
“Our community has always stepped up to the plate when one of our own is in need. Richie is a fine young man facing a serious challenge,” he said. “He and his family will not face this challenge alone.”
Eastern Regional High School is also hosting a benefit softball game for Richie and the proceeds from the event will go to the family.
The date of the event has been postponed and will be announced in the near future. Visit Eastern Regional’s Web site at eastern.k12.nj.us for more information and updates.
Richie is now at home and will be attending 10 months of intense outpatient chemotherapy at CHOP and then three years of maintenance chemotherapy. He’s planning to attend Rowan next September, Denise said, and his baseball coach has already told him that he will have a position on the team waiting for him when he comes back.
Most importantly, Denise and her husband Ralph Suarez thanked the entire Voorhees community for their generosity, good nature, and support through this whole ordeal.
“Everybody has been wonderful. I can’t thank people enough about how good they’ve been. Everything has been so overwhelming,” she said. “People are doing things that I’m not even aware of. Every time I turn around it seems as if someone has started something new.”
Contributions can be made directly to the fund care of Debby Brescia, 14 William Feather Drive, Voorhees, New Jersey 08043.
