Primary Children's Hospital helps patients keep their grades up

Primary Children's Hospital helps patients keep their grades up

(Laura Seitz, Deseret News)


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SALT LAKE CITY — When Zarahya Moors was diagnosed with leukemia in April, her family was faced with the option of traveling back and forth to a New Zealand hospital — the closest cancer treatment available from their home in Samoa.

Instead, they chose to relocate to Salt Lake City so they could be close to Primary Children's Hospital, where they had been told by a friend and nurse that 8-year-old Zarahya would get the best care possible.

"She's the baby of five kids, and she brought us all here," Zarahya's mother, Lalomanu Moors, said Wednesday.

The services they've received at the high-ranked children's hospital have been beyond their expectations, including a new on-site schoolroom, where Zarahya can continue her studies and not fall behind in her class.

"It's a blessing for our family, especially for her to keep up with school," Lalomanu Moors said. And, she said, it keeps Zarahya's mind off the sometimes grueling cancer treatment.

The young patient often even asks the volunteer certified teacher tutors at the hospital's School Zone for more homework, something to do while she waits for the chemotherapy to do its job.

"She's very smart and loves to go to school," Zarahya's mother said.

Since leaving third grade at her English school in Samoa, Zarahya has been home-schooled, with a teacher from Wasatch Elementary going to the Ronald McDonald House, where the family is staying, once a week to assign more work and evaluate the student's progress.

Zarahya can't wait to get back to school and loves working on assignments, sometimes using the latest technology available at the hospital School Zone.

On Wednesday, Zarahya worked with retired Canyons School District teacher Cynthia Buchanan, who helped her through some reading, writing and spelling. Last week, they worked on learning to tell time and count money.

"I love it, but I worry about them," said Buchanan, a volunteer. "When you're a teacher, you just care about kids and want them to be and do their best."

Her time spent teaching at the hospital, Buchanan said, "is very rewarding."

"It takes their mind off their problems for a minute and shows them what they can accomplish," she said.

Primary Children's one-room school houses hundreds of books, of all reading levels, which patients can select and keep because of infection control. Zarahya said she can't pick a favorite and loves to read "anything."

The facility, which employs three full-time teachers and anywhere from 10 to 16 volunteers, has always offered one-on-one tutoring to child patients who stay long term, as well as any parents who end up spending long hours at the hospital and might also need help achieving a high school diploma.

The process typically involves going room to room, but the School Zone gives kids a "sense of normalcy … in a place that looks like a school," said the hospital's education coordinator, Chuck Curtin.

"It's great if they get out of their rooms when they can," he said.

Curtin said kids facing tough medical issues need the opportunity to learn to encourage hope and healing, as he'd imagine kids would think hospitals just wouldn't bother if the kids weren't expected to recover.

"Kids go to school before coming to the hospital, and they will go to school when they go home," he said. "School is a normal part of life. Hospitals are not a normal part of life."

Zarahya Moors, 8, and her mother, Lalomanu, show teaching volunteer Cynthia Buchanan Zarahya's homework at the in-patient school at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016. (Photo: Laura Seitz, Deseret News)
Zarahya Moors, 8, and her mother, Lalomanu, show teaching volunteer Cynthia Buchanan Zarahya's homework at the in-patient school at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016. (Photo: Laura Seitz, Deseret News)

Knowing the ins and outs of the education system helps the on-site educators and volunteers navigate complicated issues with each child and their individual school districts, as special needs sometimes continue when students are healthy enough to leave the hospital.

"We care about the kiddos when they're not at this hospital, too," Curtin said. "We want them to succeed at school."

Various laws exist to protect students whose abilities are altered by any medical or health-related condition. Curtin said some injuries and conditions may not change the way a person looks but will change the way a person learns, understands, speaks or moves. And some just need more time to complete assignments, which can be negotiated with doctor notes and discussions with school administrators.

Depending on the severity of illness or their condition, kids sometimes stay months at the hospital, needing educational interventions to help keep them on track. Curtin said it's inspiring to see them learn.

"It's great to a see a child when they first come in and compare that to when they leave," he said. "They may not be 100 percent where they were when they came in, but they're well on their way, and it's cool to see."

Without Primary Children's, Zarahya would've been exposed to much more infection traveling to and from New Zealand. Doctors have said she needs at least eight months of chemotherapy infusions, which have burned the skin on her hands, and then about four years of maintenance and routine doctor visits to make sure she remains in remission.

"I want to be a doctor," Zarahya said proudly. She knows she'll have to study hard, and math is already her favorite subject.

She's matured a lot in the past few months. Her mother said that, coincidentally, her sweet daughter acts differently because of the situations she's faced and the environments she's been in since being diagnosed.

Before her diagnosis, Zarahya had nothing more than a continued fever and much fatigue, but doctors recommended intense treatment, and because of a welcoming staff and league of highly qualified physicians at Primary Children's Hospital, Lalomanu Moors believes her daughter is going to be OK.

"You have to make yourself think positive, instead of dwelling on the situation," she said. "We're glad we came."

And the family is likely here to stay, as they don't trust anyone else with Zarahya's improving health.

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