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Dinner benefits Yuba City boy battling cancer
WHEN: 6 p.m. Friday.
WHERE: Riverbend Elementary School, 301 Stewart Road, Yuba City.
COST: $10 per plate. $30 for a family of four.
Family to go orders are available for $30 and can be picked up from 5 p.m.-8 p.m. Call 674-2780 to buy tickets or donate items. A silent auction and raffle will be held at the dinner.
DONATIONS: Cash or check donations can be made at any Rabobank for send a check to: Bi-County Ambulance; PO Box 3130; Yuba City, CA 95992.
Checks can be made payable to the Andrew Remund Benefit Fund.
Batman and Spider-Man are his favorite superheroes, Elmo's the best "Sesame Street" character and Jake and the Neverland Pirates rank as a top toy among those packed in a suitcase for 3-year-old Andrew Remund of Yuba City.
His father, Brian, and mother, Sarah, take turns staying with him at Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento where Andrew is undergoing chemotherapy.
"One of us will always be with him," Brian Remund said Wednesday.
On Friday, co-workers of Brian Remund at Bi-County Ambulance will hold a spaghetti dinner fundraiser at Riverbend Elementary School in Yuba City. The 34-year-old paramedic has been helping Andrew since Sept. 22 after the boy had tonsillitis early in the month, wasn't getting any better and doctors diagnosed Andrew with stage 4 neuroblastoma cancer.
Neuroblastoma is a disease in which malignant cells form in nerve tissue of the adrenal gland, neck, chest or spinal cord. The family expects to have Andrew at home to join his 7-year-old brother, Jared, and 7-month-old sister, Megan, for Thanksgiving. Andrew is completing four days of chemotherapy, and Brian said the plan is to head home on Friday to Yuba City.
"Things are such right now that it's tough to think beyond the week," Brian Remund said. "He should be able to stay home for a couple of weeks. We're crossing our fingers."
Any fever requires returning right back to the hospital where the Sutter Children's Center and the Child Life Program is located.
Brian and Andrew watched Elmo on "Sesame Street," and his father said the 3-year-old has energy that was absent before the medical treatments began.
"This is pretty laid back for him," Brian said of watching television.
If one considered Andrew's condition before chemotherapy began and how he is now, "It's night and day," his father said.
"It's nice to see him having fun," Brian said.
Andrew will undergo additional medical treatment, including a bone marrow transplant that harvests the boy's own stem cells, his father said.
"It's all new," Brian said. "We're still learning how to understand it."
His work as a paramedic has helped him to be able to follow much of the medicine.
"There's been a lot of times I've kind of had to interpret for my wife," he said.
"Sometimes they're talking over my head," Brian added.
Nine hours of chemotherapy for Andrew starts at 3 p.m. and ends around midnight. The treatment changes how foods taste, his father said.
"A lot of things he used to like he doesn't enjoy anymore," Brian said.
Still, the 3-year-old is still happy to see a pizza and breakfast is a big deal.
"Pancakes and waffles," Brian said, "are his absolute favorite."
Food works into the title of one of Andrew's favorite movies — the 2009 film "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," about a town where food falls from the sky.
Brian, when working as a paramedic, would sometimes take patients to Sutter Memorial in Sacramento.
"This was always a place we brought kids," he said. "It's a good place for kids to be."
CONTACT Ryan McCarthy at rmccarthy@appealdemocrat.com or 749-4780. Find him on Facebook at /ADrmccarthy or on Twitter at @ADrmccarthy.
