Seven years ago, Marcela Ceballos couldn’t utter a single syllable of English, and doctors estimated she had just three months to live.
Seven weeks from now, Ceballos will graduate from UCLA with a degree in psychology and a minor in Spanish. She’ll add volunteering, fundraising and research to her resume and hopefully one day obtain a Ph.D.
“I wasn’t scared; I was excited,” said Ceballos, with trademark optimism, while she described her first journey to the U.S. from her native Chile.
Diagnosed with a rare brain tumor at age 12, Ceballos journeyed to the U.S. after seven surgeries at home that left Chilean doctors telling her there was nothing left they could do.
In 2003, after years of country-hopping, 16-year-old Ceballos and her family were forced to move to the U.S. permanently so she could receive medication available only at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. While she endured seemingly endless treatments, Ceballos’ parents, brother and sister lived at the Ronald McDonald house, which continually opens its 75 occupancies to families in need of cheap lodging near the hospital.
“We met a lot of people who helped us out,” Ceballos said of her path to the hospital that saved her life. “It was something like a miracle.”
The true miracle, however, seems to be the strong-spirited Ceballos herself.
Homeschooled for her first two years in the U.S., Ceballos taught herself English, as she matter-of-factly recounted, by “reading books, looking up the words (she) didn’t understand, and reading them again.”
With a 3.9 GPA, she attended a local high school for one year before moving on to community college, where a counselor guided her to UCLA. “When I got (into UCLA), I cried,” Ceballos said. “It was one of the most wonderful moments of my life. … A diploma is the only thing that nobody can take away from you.”
She plans to pursue an advanced degree after graduation, ideally at Cornell, and hopes to launch a career in forensic psychology.
Despite these achievements, it’s clear Ceballos intends to honor the source of her success. She re-creates her fond memories at the Ronald McDonald House every Friday, when she voluntarily cleans, answers questions and offers an ear to families whose struggles she can identify with all too easily.
“The Ronald McDonald House is my other home,” Ceballos, who often stays for hours after her shift’s assigned end, said. “I call the people there my uncles and aunts, and that’s what they are to me. … I love it there.”
According to the home’s volunteer manager, Jennifer Cohen, the Los Angeles Ronald McDonald House is one of 300 in the world and depends heavily on a base of 300 volunteers for its operation.
“Marcela understands what our families are going through,” Cohen said. “She helps just by being an empathetic listener.”
The house is kept afloat through private donations and funds raised by events like the annual Walk for Kids. Ceballos’s family will participate in the event, which takes place Sunday at Universal Studios.
Ceballos herself, however, will be working her magic in a different endeavor.
She’ll spend the weekend on a retreat with Teen Impact, a support group for patients at Childrens Hospital who suffer from cancer or blood disease.
“She’s attended before, but this is Marcela’s first year counseling on our retreat,” said Octavio Zavala, Teen Impact’s program administrator. “She’s always been a very mature and passionate member of our program, so it was just natural for her to become a counselor.”
The three-day retreat, only a small part of Teen Impact’s efforts, allows patients to regain independence and explore their disease experiences through recreation and group discussions.
“Marcela is someone who, from the first time she came to our program, was very motivated about telling her story,” Zavala said. “She knew her story could help others. … She’s someone who takes on challenges and then accomplishes so much more.”
Ceballos has indeed proven her knack for conquering challenges thanks to an outlook that not even cancer can undercut.
“I live every day knowing that there’ll never be another day like this one,” Ceballos said, conviction from every perfectly pronounced English word.
“I cannot be planning all the time. I go with what I would like, but if God has something else in mind for me, then that’s good.”