MARKO GEORGIEV/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER: Saddle Brook sophomore David Guerra in his backyard, with his mother, Ruth, in the background. He is undergoing chemotherapy after being diagnosed with leukemia over the summer.
By DARREN COOPER
LOCAL SPORTS COLUMNIST | The Record
SADDLE BROOK – Everything was looking brighter.
David Guerra was practicing with the Saddle Brook boys soccer team on the field just a block from his Oxford Avenue home. The incoming sophomore had trained almost every day in the off-season, and Falcons coach Chris Alfieri was sure Guerra would contribute for the Falcons this year.
But during a captain’s practice in June, Guerra started to feel peculiar. The grass appeared a dark green. The sky looked vividly blue. He told team captain Nick Martinez he needed a break and went to splash water on his face.
After a few minutes, he rejoined practice, then had to stop again.
“I told Nick, ‘I can’t do this,’ so he sent me home,” said Guerra, 15. “He said I looked really pale, and I just barely made it home.”
By then, David’s mother, Ruth, already was suspicious. David was feeling odd pains in his chest. He always seemed fatigued. He would come home from school and sleep or play on his Xbox. He developed a mild fever that never went away.
After a litany of tests, doctors at first thought it was mononucleosis. Not good news, but not serious, either. Guerra told Alfieri that was the diagnosis.
But the truth was discovered a couple of weeks later. Guerra has leukemia.
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