NEW ORLEANS -- Michael Reason has a big smile, a sunny personality, and bright, intelligent eyes. The 6-year-old looks so healthy, but he has a brain tumor. Ask his mom about him, and the fear from sleepless nights boils over into tears.
"I pray so much that I just pray myself to sleep," said Omaira Reason.
The tumor was discovered last fall, when Michael's eyes began to cross involuntarily, and he started having trouble walking.
"This leg was weak," Michael said. "I couldn't walk well because this leg sometimes, couldn't walk right up."
"I was in shock," Omaira added as the tears flowed. "He was a healthy kid, you know. I was dreaming to see him grow up."
Michael has been in and out of several hospitals, a tough experience for a 6-year-old.
"Getting poked. It's horrible getting poked and stuff."
And he has a bizarre souvenir, the special mask he wore during the radiation treatments used to attack the tumor.
"They had to screw it on a table, and I had to have my face under it like this," Michael said as he held the mask in place.
"His body was tied to the table, and his head was screwed to the table with the mask, and he had to do it all by himself," said Omaira.
Now his mom gives Michael chemotherapy medication three times a day at home, and prays that an experimental drug being considered will work, and in the meantime, makes his life as happy as possible.
"I used to have like a fear, how longer would he be here, you know. But now when I look at him, I just enjoy every second, every minute with him. I just, like, film his smile, and every word he says to me."
But the family is in a second fight, to get the U.S. government to give Michael's grandmother a visa to come here from Venezuela to see him. But they say she has been denied three times.
"Just like Michael needs me here, he needs my mom. And me, I need her here," Omaira said.
"We contacted Senator Landrieu's office," said Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts, "and the best way, and quickest way they told us, to try to get some relief is to contact Catholic Charities. Knowing the relationship that you guys have had with them, we thought the best way to approach that was to contact you guys."
So I contacted Catholic Charities, and they tell me they have staffers in the Immigration and Refugee Services division now working on this case. And just knowing that is a relief to Michael's mother, as she continues to help him battle the tumor.
"I laugh, and I go and play, and sometimes when I get in the shower, that's when I start crying, and when I go to bed," Michael said.
I'll let you know what happens.
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