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Serving Sealy and Austin County, Texas since 1887 • Home of Joyce Junco Volume 129 Number 3

THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 2016

16 pages, $1

'Ricky is a superhero' Boy fights brain cancer through strength, character

By JASON B. HOGAN reporter@sealynews.com

“Ricky is a superhero,” Belen Pedilla said of her son.

Ricky sees himself as Spider-Man. Ricardo Padilla prefers to be called Ricky. Only doctors call him Ricardo, to which he rolls his eyes when addressed.

The rest of the world simply knows him as Ricky.

Ricky used to be shy, although he does not exhibit any telltale signs. He bounces back and forth between his Spider-Man and Batman figurines and remote control car racing around in the Padilla living room.

Ricky adores being loved and remaining the center of attention, the Padillas said.

Ricky had never been sick, at least nothing memorable, leading up to a June 2014 prognosis. Ricky has a stage IV brain tumor located at the brain stem. It has been shrinking ever since treatment began, his family said.

The Padillas found the cancer diagnosis hard to swallow.

Health wise, Ricky’s been progressing ever since he started therapy. His first six weeks were dedicated to proton therapy and now he’s on oral chemotherapy.

At the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Ricky has a huge team of doctors, mainly because only 20 people in the world have stage IV brain cancer, just five in the United States, and so much can be learned from his plight with the terminal illness, the family said they were told.

“Before this happened, we were just another family. And now, people that we don’t even know ask us how Ricky is doing,” said Jeny, Ricky’s older sister.

When circumstances change for the worst, it reveals the true caring people of the community. Who sticks to your side? Who disappears, Jeny said. The Sealy community is full of people who want to get involved. That’s the impact Ricky brings, Jeny said.

At the cancer’s onset, Ricky began to experience trouble with his balance. That was the first sign.

It all happened within a day. The Padillas took Ricky to Jeny’s job at Sealy Eye Center to have his vision test-

Sealy council goes to school Board gets lesson on HOT fund do's and don'ts

By JASON B. HOGAN reporter@sealynews.com

The Sealy News/JASON B. HOGAN

Ricky Padilla displays two of his favorite superheroes, Batman and Spider-Man, as he sits on the Padilla living room couch. The 5-year-old is battling terminal brain cancer.

In order to spend Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) funds, even a single dollar, a municipality must first ask themselves, “Does spending that dollar put a head in a bed?”

That is the primary question that must have an affirmative answer before HOT fund dollars can be dispensed to any organization or for any project, said Justin Bragiel, general counsel with the Texas Hotel & Lodging Association. He provided a presentation on municipal hotel occupancy tax usage to Sealy City Council members and what the city can legally disburse the funds for at a Jan. 12 meeting.

“You have a fiduciary duty to use hotel tax revenue in a way where you get a reasonable return on investment for your community,” Bragiel said to council members.

First, it has to fit within a public purpose, but there’s a limit to how those taxes can be used. Bragiel said Texas legislature has set a two-part test for properly spending hotel tax money: does it “directly promote and enhance tourism in the hotel and convention industry” and “you’ve got to categorize that expendi■ COUNCIL, page 3

The Sealy News/JASON B. HOGAN

The Padilla family joins in for a group photo throwing up peace signs in honor of Iron Man, one of Ricky’s favorite superheroes. Pictured from left to right are Belen Padilla, Javier Padilla, Ricky and Jeny Padilla. ed, but his sight was perfect.

Next, they went to the Medical Clinics of Sealy and were asked if Ricky had been taken to the emergency center.

From there, everything spi-

raled out of control. Ricky went from simple balance issues to terminal cancer in less than 24 hours.

“I don’t remember before all of this. I don’t remember what

he was like, or what we did before this because this has been our life now,” Jeny said.

The family has rallied ■ RICKY, page 16

Sealy council hires new city attorney

By JASON B. HOGAN reporter@sealynews.com

The Sealy News/JASON B. HOGAN

Lora Lenzsch, newly appointed city attorney, addresses the Sealy City Council at a Jan. 12 meeting. Her effective start date for the city was Jan. 13 after council approved her hiring.

At a Dec. 12 Sealy City Council meeting, the council approved the hiring of a new city attorney, Lora Jean Lenzsch of Katy, effective Jan. 13.

At the meeting, Lenzsch was present to address city council and relay her qualifications.

“You will be my primary, sole client. You will not be competing for my attention with other large cities,”

Lenzsch said.

Lenzsch has been a practicing attorney for 30 years. She was previously Sealy’s city prosecutor for seven years, and currently acts as an associate judge for the municipal court.

Over her career, Lenzsch has mostly represented municipalities, to include positions as the city attorney for Rosenberg, formerly, and currently is the city attorney for Needville and the Village of Pleak, and

city prosecutor for Rosenberg and Richmond, according to her résumé.

Lenzsch said she believes her strongest suit is accessibility.

“You call, you’re going to be talking to me,” she said.

Most small cities generally require quick answers to simple questions, Lenzsch said. She does not bill a city or municipality for every five minutes spent in response, ■ ATTORNEY, page 2

Newspaper changes deadlines The deadline to submit items for publication and classified advertisements in The Sealy News will move from Mondays at noon to Fridays at 3 p.m. effective Jan. 29.

The change is necessary to accommodate a new production process.

All items submitted after Friday at 3 p.m. will be held for the following week. This deadline includes all classified ads, News Bits, announcements, club and organization news, letters to the editor and any other items submitted from the community for publication.

The obituary and sports deadlines remain Monday at noon.

For more information about this change, please contact Managing Editor Joe Southern at 979-885-3562 or editor@ sealynews.com.

The Sealy News • 193 Schmidt Road • P.O. Box 480 • Sealy, TX 77474 • phone: (979) 885-3562 • fax: (979) 885-3564 • www.sealynews.com

BIBLEQUOTE

INDEXINSIDE

Better a poor man whose walk is blameless than a fool whose lips are perverse.

Proverbs 19:1

Church...............11 Classifieds...13-14 Community....8-10 News Bits.............2 Obituaries.........10 Opinion................4 Old dog needs new home Sports..............5-7 PAGE 8

This week's weather Day/High/Low/Rain Thursday 67/39/60% Friday 56/33/0% Saturday 58/39/0% Sunday 73/55/0% Monday 71/44/20% Tuesday 58/36/20% Wednesday 60/39/0%

This week's weather art is by Garrison Ward, a student at Selman Elementary School.

PAGE 16 ■ THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 2016

RICKY continued from Page 1 around Ricky. They say it has made them a stronger family. Ricky has made them stronger individually and cohesively.

When they first diagnosed him, Ricky was at Memorial Hermann in Katy. That’s when they found the lesion in the brain with the CT scan. So then they transferred him to the Memorial Hermann in Houston, and when they discovered the severity of Ricky’s condition they transferred him to MD Anderson.

“That’s when they told my mom, ‘There’s three options. This is a very rare type of cancer. He either passes — he dies —, or he goes in a coma, or he’s paralyzed. What do you want to do?’” Jeny said of their first conversation with MD Anderson’s medical team.

Ricky’s doctor is Wafik Zaky of pediatric neurosurgery department for the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He asked Belen if he could describe the tumor’s size and location to her. Belen rejected the offer. She didn’t want to know. But Zaky insisted it was the only way to explain the significance and where Ricky went from there.

Zaky sat them in a small examination room. Of course, the Padillas hate small rooms now. That’s where they gave the bad news, Jeny said. It was a deadly declaration. In that small room, the Padillas were told Ricky has a 5 percent chance at survival.

Ricky has beaten those odds thus far by six months. He turns six on May 25.

THE SEALY NEWS

“In one day, the doctor told me your son has very, very dangerous tumor,” Belen said, not understanding what that meant at the time.

The doctor explained that it’s cancer, as she shook her head refusing to believe it could happen to Ricky. Not to their family.

“This day changed our lives completely,” Belen said.

“Now I look at life different. Life is very, very fragile,” she said.

Belen sees life through glass nowadays, at its most fragile state. No one can get sick around Ricky because of the contagions, and also there would be no one to care for him. And no matter how fractured the family may become physically they have to appear whole to Ricky for fear that he loses faith.

The Padillas have faith in bunches.

Belen said God is always first to her and her family and they always praise Him because a lot of people have prayed for Ricky and shown their support.

It is very difficult to seek treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Padillas said. When the family first registered Ricky for treatment at the center, authorization was given to the hospital to use lab results and tested material in Ricky’s treatment for future patients in hope of providing the missing piece to an elusive cure.

That’s part of the reason the Padillas got Ricky into the treatment center. Others have done the same before them, and why not, Jeny asked. That is their contribution as well.

“We didn’t have to do

The Sealy News/JASON B. HOGAN

Belen Padilla holds up a religious icon of Jesus Christ while sitting beside her husband Javier.

The Padillas take the frame picture with them whenever they go to the hospital with their son Ricky, who has terminal brain cancer. anything. It was all God,” Jeny said of Ricky’s admittance to MD Anderson while others might say they were lucky to receive care from there.

“I wish Ricky was just a brat. Sometimes you wish to have the problems that people look at … I’d rather him be spoiled and a brat than like this. But that’s the life we got,” Jeny said.

With Ricky’s severe type of cancer, doctors said he would lack energy, appetite and sleep constantly. On cue, Ricky reached for a piece of a tortilla. His favorite source of energy is chicken nuggets.

“Day by day, Ricky is my hero, my superhero because sometimes he has a lot of pain, but he rarely cries,” Belen said.

“That’s why it hurts when he does,” Jeny said because the pain must be excruciating for Ricky to show it.

He’s only been brought to tears three times since June 2014 when he was diagnosed.

One of those times, Ricky went in for a regular check-up and his doctor found an infection. His doctor needed to perform an immediate operation.

It was a moment that broke the Padilla family once again.

“He laid him down on the table. We grabbed him. Someone grabbed his feet. Someone grabbed his head. And he just started stitch-

ing away. He said, ‘It will hurt. I’m sorry, but this is the only way,’” Jeny said. There was no time, not even for anesthesia for Ricky.

Ricky bawled. That was one of the three times Ricky unwillingly bared his pain for all to see.

That was five or six months ago. Ricky’s condition deteriorated rapidly.

“His intestines started swelling up. There was fluid. He had infections,” Jeny said.

His stomach was the size of a medium round ball.

Javier, Ricky’s father, joined the family in the living room on a spot between Belen and Ricky.

On the mantle, there is a picture of Ricky in a hospital bed, hair shaved and donning a huge smile. Ricky always smiles, Belen said proudly.

“Ricky, you see him there and he looks so bad and look at him now,” Jeny said pointing to him pouncing on the couch anxiously.

Ricky had a shunt inserted that bulges from his chest, which directs flow toward the heart so doctors do not have to continually poke him for every treatment. It’s like a central line, the doctors explained to the family.

Ricky poses and throws up a peace sign to emulate Iron Man, another one of his favorite heroes.

SEALY HIGH SCHOOL REUNION CLASSES 1985, 1986, 1987, & 1988 Date & Time: Saturday, February 6, 2016, starting at 7 p.m.

Where: Cotton Ranch in Katy Price: $30 per person due by January 29 Mail checks to Cotton Ranch Events 5443 Katy Hockley Cutoff, Katy, TX 77493 Attention: Robin or Morgan Checks payable to Robin Ebrecht or Marvin Joiner Tickets will NOT be sold at the door.

Mixer planned for Friday, February 5, at the Saddleback Saloon in Sealy

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The shunt also passes from the brain toward his stomach.

“It drains the fluid because without the shunt he was having headaches where he couldn’t stand it. It was so much fluid buildup,” Jeny said.

Not even three weeks prior, Ricky had four surgeries in a single day, Dec. 23, mainly for appendicitis. Two of the operations were cranial and two were in the abdomen.

Doctors had to remove the shunt, externalize it, wait until it healed, then perform an appendectomy, wait for that to heal, and finally replace everything while waiting for Ricky’s healing process once again. The Padillas were in the hospital until Christmas, Jeny said.

In total, Ricky has been in the operating room approximately nine times.

His recovery time is inhuman, the family says.

During the surgeries, Ricky had all of his hair removed. His hair is curlier than ever, the Padillas said, as if the surgeries never happened.

After his hair grew back, Ricky refused a haircut. He’s received endless comments on his hair and how cute it is. Ricky cannot stand haircuts anymore, Jeny said while laughing.

It’s hard sometimes.

Tylenol doesn’t relieve simple symptoms in Ricky as it does with others.

“If he has a fever, that’s pack your bags and go,” Jeny said.

Any sign that his health is out of the norm might call for an extended hospital visit.

“But there’s no questions asked. If something happens, everything just drops. I think as a family we’ve grown very close together. I mean, we’ve had to for his sake because we need to be

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strong for him,” Jeny said.

“Our life has changed but watching him get better is what makes it worth it,” Jeny said, translating from Spanish to English for her mother.

Ricky also loves dinosaurs. At the hospital, he was granted a wish through the Make A Wish Foundation.

Ricky wants to travel to Universal Studios and see the Jurassic Park exhibit. Through prayers and God’s grace, the Padillas said they hope to make the trip this summer.

Ricky spent his fifth birthday in the hospital. His other wish was to have a huge birthday party. By the time the Padillas returned home it was too late to set up.

The Sealy community made that dream come true. Three hundred people showed at BP&W Park. The living room was packed with presents when they returned home.

Now Ricky wants another party to match last year.

“At the beginning it was a little hard for him to go to school because we didn’t know if he was actually ready, medically and physically…It was really a transition in lifestyle because he was always in bed, my mom was taking care of him. And now to the stranger world,” Jeny said.

Now, Ricky attends Selman Elementary School.

Ricky makes you want to keep going, the family said in agreement. He makes you strive for more.

“Cancer breaks down your family, yes, but the support of family and friends makes you 10 times stronger than you ever imagined,” Belen said in Spanish as Jeny translated once again.

“So it can be worse.

We proudly have it worse. But it can also get better. Along with faith and God and Jesus, we keep going.

Every day is something new,” Jeny said as Ricky curiously peers through the window curtains out into the night.

The Padillas have received prayers from church communities all over the country, even in Mexico.

Belen genuflects and prays to God day and night to thank Him for another beginning and conclusion to a day with Ricky. They can never receive too many prayers. Keep them coming, Belen said thankfully.

Each prayer invites more miracles to be shared by the Padilla family.

“De los estamos caminando en un desierto,” Belen said. Jeny loosely translates, “It’s like walking in a desert.

You never know what’s going to come your way.”

COMMUNITY

PAGE A8 ■ THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

SEALY NEWS

WWW.SEALYNEWS.COM

Take me [back] to the ball game America’s favorite “vintage” game leisurely invades Sealy Picnic

By JASON B. HOGAN reporter@sealynews.com

In vintage baseball – the time-travelling sport that features old uniforms, old equipment and even older rules - the game and customs were much different from America’s current craft. Baseball, or “base ball” as the game was commonly spelled before the 1880s, was a gentleman’s game.

It was a game of respect.

On Saturday, vintage baseball resurfaced at B&PW Park in conjunction with the 2016 Spring Picnic.

Appropriately, it was the first time the Sealy Area Historical Society hosted the baseball event. Teams spanning from Sealy and eastward to Houston stirred their stumps (hustled) in the outfield for two brief sixinning games.

Respect and bonding might be lost art forms in this media saturated period but, then, it was about camaraderie. And while on the field Saturday, players held to the age-old rules, many of which having less to do with game play and more with conduct.

No foul or uncivil language.

No spitting.

No alcohol consumption.

No chewing of tobacco.

In the 1860s, pitches were also delivered underhand to allow for good striking. There were judges, not umpires. Players were ballists. The game was a match.

This weekend, in the second game – er, match - of the afternoon, the Houston Babies faced the Barker Cypress Red Sox in the presence of about 30 cranks, or fans as they are now called.

Photos by Jason B. Hogan

Some teams keep it truly traditional to the era and use made up handles on the field of play rather than their actual moniker, like Pops, Swaggy P, Bam Bam, Chowda and Flash of the Red Sox, as it helped fans to identify with players.

The obvious difference in the game of yesteryear and today is the equipment. Bats were more slender and solid, closer in resemblance to bats used in stickball. And the ball itself is more rubberized, called a horsehide or onion, and

harder to get a full swing on.

Some players said it feels like you are going to break your wrists when you try to get full contact on the ball.

Well, that did not stop Bam Bam from lacing one into an outfield, straight-to-center gap and legging it to second base on an eventual ground rule double over the fence.

On that sun-stricken diamond, players reminded those in attendance why baseball – or even base ball - remains America’s favorite pastime.

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