Boy’s Idea Helps Young Patients Cope

Johnnie Lanners has a doctor’s appointment today. The 10-year-old will be measured and weighed and receive chemotherapy. He will lie on his side, clutch his favorite nurse’s hand and curl into a fetal position for his monthly spinal tap.

But before all this unpleasantness, the Irvine boy and his grandmother will stock the oncology/hematology treatment room at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles with dozens of action figures, puzzles, board games and Legos.

It’s a routine the freckle-faced boy has kept for 2 1/2 years while operating an informal organization he calls Johnnie’s Charity. The toys are given to children as a reward for enduring uncomfortable spinal taps and a procedure called a bone marrow aspiration.

Every month Johnnie and his grandmother, Edie Layland, fill the treatment room’s “treasure chest,” a large wooden cabinet, with the toys they’ve collected from friends, neighbors and corporate sponsors. Then they sit and wait for the poking and prodding to begin.

Johnnie is in remission from leukemia. He again has a full head of hair and enjoys karate and computer games as much as any boy.

Unpleasant Procedure

He speaks matter-of-factly about his treatment, but his brave front cracks just a little when he sees the needle that nurse Maria Lapinid will use to administer the chemotherapy.

“It’s OK, take a deep breath,” Lapinid instructs as she taps the back of Johnnie’s hand in search of a vein.

Minutes later, he is holding her hand as physician assistant Mitzi D’Aquila begins the spinal tap.

Johnnie is told to bring his knees up to his face so D’Aquila can find the proper place to inject.

“Go really slow,” he says.

“I’ll go really slow,” D’Aquila says. “You just let me know.”

“What are you learning in math right now?” Lapinid asks Johnnie as D’Aquila begins draining spinal fluid into three small plastic vials.

“Fractions, multiplying fractions,” Johnnie says quietly.

“You’re doing great,” Lapinid says.

A few minutes later, the procedure is over.

Imagine “falling on a rock and then having someone push you against that rock. That’s how it feels,” Johnnie explains later.

Spinal taps, also known as lumbar punctures, and bone marrow aspirations are used to diagnose and monitor certain cancers.

Sometimes leukemia cells can hide in the fluid surrounding the spine and cushioning the brain, explained Lapinid. For patients like Johnnie, it’s the most direct way to see whether leukemia cells have returned.

During bone marrow aspirations, doctors remove marrow fluid from the hip bone. Doctors usually apply a numbing cream to the area, and some children are sedated, but the tests can be painful.

Doctors and nurses at Childrens Hospital have tried to make the experience less traumatic by rewarding children with toys afterward.

“During these procedures, the child is actually held down and he or she loses a sense of control,” says Maria Tome, a child life specialist at the hospital. “Children sometimes can’t conceptualize why we’re doing this to them, but we’ve found that when they are rewarded with something, it helps them not to see the procedure in a completely negative light.”

But Johnnie remembers very slim pickings the first time he looked into the treasure chest three years ago.

“There was nothing for boys,” he recalls. “There were a couple of Barbies, but there was nothing really good in there.”

Donations to the chest were down that year, so Johnnie decided to take matters into his own hands. He told his grandmother he would use his own savings to buy Legos for the toy box. Layland agreed and offered to match his $15, and the two went to Toys R Us.

And that’s how Johnnie’s Charity was born.

Johnnie and his grandmother are not sure how many toys the charity has donated to the hospital, but they’ve managed to keep the wooden treasure chest full--no small feat at a facility that performs five to seven spinal taps and bone marrow aspirations a day.

The toys are also given to patients on their birthdays.

‘Donating Like Crazy’

Johnnie’s Charity is still very informal, and he and his grandmother never know who will be donating from month to month, but they have been successful relying on good old-fashioned word of mouth.

The monks at Layland’s church talked about Johnnie one day during Mass and “people started donating like crazy,” Johnnie says.

His mother, Jennifer, a Santa Monica hairstylist, mentioned Johnnie’s Charity to one of her clients and he donated the latest batch of Hot Wheels and Double Dare board games.

Creators of “The Simpsons” and Lego Co. have also become donors. The charity received dozens of boxes full of “Simpsons” and “Futurama” toys and puzzles. Lego Co. sends building kits every five months or so. Some people have donated money, but most send new toys to Layland’s home or to the hospital.

Johnnie would like to expand the charity to include Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

Another goal is to raise enough money to buy a Sony Playstation for every room on the fourth floor of the Los Angeles facility, where all the patients hospitalized with cancer stay.

Recently, Mitchell Jaimes, 7, of Los Angeles went to the hospital for one of his regular lumbar punctures. He is sedated, but usually reminds his mother, Wendy, of something even as he becomes woozy.

“His eyes are closing and he reaches out to me and says, ‘Get me my toy,’” she says.