SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Ron and Don’s Make My Day helps out Yelm girl with cancer
May 25, 2016, 8:23 AM
Don O'Neill, Doug Jaquez, Nya Kabouni, brother Daniel Kabouni, and Ron Upshaw. (Nick Jarin, KIRO Radio)
(Nick Jarin, KIRO Radio)
Nya Kabouni’s day starts early in Yelm.
“We get up at about 4:45 a.m.” said stepfather Doug Jaquez on KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don Show. “We hit the road at about 5:45 a.m. We get to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance at about 7:30 a.m. Then go through [chemo] treatment for about 30 minutes and I drive Nya back home so she can get to school. That’s pretty much how our day goes.”
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Nya, 15, said she powers through her day and tries not to give off the impression that she is sick. In fact, many of her classmates at Yelm High School aren’t aware of her early-morning routine.
“I take chemo pills and if I don’t eat enough I get really nauseous,’” she said. “So on the drive back I usually try to get as much sleep as I can. But throughout the day I just want to pass out, go home and take a nap. But I push myself so it doesn’t seem like I’m sick.”
Nya lives in Yelm with Jaquez, her mother Cassandra, and brothers, Jacob and Danny. She was first diagnosed with a rare form of colon cancer in 2013.
“At the time I didn’t really know what cancer was,” Nya said. “I’m a huge fan of Ellen, and she had one of her guest on her show with cancer. Right when I got diagnosed, she died of cancer. I started getting scared.”
Nya fought cancer with chemotherapy at Children’s Hospital. But after her fight, she found that she wasn’t ready to go back to playing softball — she had lost 30 pounds during treatment. So she gave golf a try. It turns out, she’s pretty good at it.
“I thought it was going to be boring and not as fun. Once I started I was like, ‘Holy smokes this is hard.’ And I really got into it,” Nya said.
A year went by and Nya found out that the cancer had returned. She has now gone back into treatment.
Softball remains Nya’s favorite sport, though she has never gone to a Mariners game. KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don Show, along with the Seattle Mariners, wanted to change that. They gave Nya and her whole family tickets to a game.
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