Tatum first grader rings bell after cancer battle
Denise Marquez/News-Sun
Forget Santa’s sleigh bells. For one Tatum first-grader, the most meaningful Christmas sound was a bell she rung signaling the end of her cancer battle.
Adalee Torrez, age 7 of Lovington and a first grader at Tatum Elementary School, rang the bell at the Joe Arrington Cancer Center in Lubbock, Texas on Dec. 18.
“It’s been a long road,” Samantha Torrez, Adalee’s mother said. “She was so happy to ring the bell and finish and close that little chapter. I think it was a relief for her.”
Adalee was diagnosed with B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia in May 2023, when Adalee was five years old. She has been fighting the cancer for the past two and a half years.
“The treatment is a two-to-three-year treatment no matter what,” Samantha said. “You can be in remission and have a clear bone marrow and still have to go (receive treatment) this whole time. They (doctors) want to knock your bone marrow down to zero as any times as they can that way it becomes clear instead of remembering how to create that bad cell.”
Adalee’s bone marrow biopsy came back clear in September 2023. With a clear bone marrow biopsy, Adalee began her maintenance treatment phase, which includes chemotherapy and Samantha said lasts two years. Adalee completed her treatment on Oct. 5.
“She handled it with so much grace; and her faith is beyond anything that I could ever understand,” Samantha said. “For us, as an adult, we have our faith and we believe God’s going to heal her and we pray and we know he is. But for her, she came home one day from the hospital, and we had little bracelets made and it would say, ‘Ada Strong.’ She had asked me if she could have one that said, ‘Ada is healed,’ so she knew from her first month of treatment that she was healed.”
“She said, ‘whenever they poke me, Jesus is right there with me,’” Samantha added. “She says she talks to God and that she knew she was healed. Her faith drove her through all of it and she always knew she was going to be okay.”
Before she rang the bell at the cancer center, Adalee was surprised by her teacher Martha Castanon who celebrated her cancer victory during the schools’ Christmas concert that was held on the same day as her bell ringing at the hospital. Castanon invited Adalee to ring a bell at the end of the concert, and share a special moment with her classmates.
“The plan was to take the whole class and kind of make it like a field trip for her bellringing,” Castanon said. “When I asked permission from admin and my principal, she said, ‘oh no, that’s the same day as our Christmas program.’ She (Adalee) kept asking her classmates, ‘are you going to make it to my bell ringing?’ Everybody was like no we’re not going to be able to make it and I was just like that breaks my heart.”
“We just kind of came up with the idea of making a bell for her with a stand and having all her classmates sign it and then have her ring it right there in front of everybody,” Castanon added. “I was not expecting the love that she got from the audience and her classmates. It was just a beautiful moment. Everybody was overwhelmed with emotions and happy tears.”
Castanon said Adalee is the “sweetest, most loving kid you’ll know,” and said Adalee has had a great impact on her life.
“When she came into my life, I was ready to quit teaching,” Castanon said. “I was ready to give up — sometimes the kids get harder and harder. When she came into my life it just reminded me of what’s important and what’s not. She just kind of lit a fire into my teaching. I’m just inspired by her strength and her story. She’s just an incredible little human being.”
Samantha said her daughter’s courage and strength is an inspiration to herself and her entire family. She said any other families battling Leukemia, or any other type of cancer, need to find a good support system; to surround themselves with other families who have fought cancer.
“You’re going to have your family and your friends — the ones that are there for you but they don’t fully understand what you’re going through. Sometimes it’s just easier to have someone that has been there and you can run things by them of how you’re feeling or what’s going on,” she said. “Everyone puts this stigma that (cancer) it’s rare but it’s not rare by any means. Just support any way that you can. September is child cancer awareness month and the more awareness we spread the more, hopefully, a cure will be found.”
