While other councilpeople frequently spend the five to 10 minute break between the City Council caucus session and the official biweekly meeting talking with neighbors or looking over the evening’s agenda, City Councilman Ruben Ramos Jr. can often be found in the City Hall bathroom throwing up. Since November 4, the first-term 4th Ward councilman has been undergoing a rigorous treatment of chemotherapy to fight Hodgkin’s Disease, a type of cancer that attacks the lymph nodes. Last week, Ramos had his 12th and final treatment. The councilman says that he and his doctors are “upbeat” about a battery of tests that he will take in mid-June to determine if the cancer has left his system. The treatments have been so physically draining that Ramos has had to take a temporary leave from his full-time post as a sixth grade teacher at a public school in Patterson. “They have taken their toll physically and mentally,” said Ramos Wednesday. “I vomit a lot and feel nauseous all the time. Sometimes it is hard to just get out of bed in the morning because I just wonder if it is always going to be like this. Finally on the Saturday or Sunday, nearly two weeks after getting my treatment I start feeling OK, and then I have to go in there and get whacked again.” Throughout it all, Ramos has done his best to keep on top of his duties as a city councilman. Since he began his treatments he has only missed two council meetings due to the illness. “I pushed myself to go to the meetings,” said Ramos. “There were some issues that I really wanted to be there for to debate and to vote on.” Although he did not start the chemotherapy regimen until November, Ramos says that he has actually been struggling with the disease since last April when he first ran for the council. At that time he said that he began suffering from night sweats, itchiness and fatigue. “I didn’t think much of it because it was during the election season,” he said. “And I went back to work in September. Then over a two-week period all the fatigue and the night sweats started to mount up. It used to be once in awhile. Then it was constant. One day I reached up and felt a lump on my neck.” At first doctors thought it might be a simple infection, but within a few weeks, Ramos said, “It was no longer just a lump. It was like the whole side of my neck.” After an operation to remove as much and as many of the tumors as possible, Ramos enrolled himself in a clinical study that was investigating whether it was possible to treat patients with Hodgkin’s Disease simply with chemotherapy, instead of a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. “I figure if someone else comes along with the same thing that I have this study could make it easier on them,” he explained. “If they can skip radiation altogether, than that would be great. Chemotherapy is enough to put up with in and of itself.” It will take doctors until July 31 to analyze the tests and see if Ramos’s cancer is in remission as he hopes. Until then, he says that he will keep a positive outlook and look forward to going back to work next September. “No matter what the tests say, I am going back to teach next September,” Ramos said excitedly. “I miss being there so much. I can’t even believe how much I miss it.”
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