A Survivor of Haiti's Quake, and Now of Leukemia, Too

In a faint voice, Danielo Morpeau, who is still learning English and speaks with a slight Haitian accent, read two of the first words he learned while living in New York: “melatonin,” to aid sleep, and “Celexa,” to treat depression.

Danielo, 14, sitting on a futon in his family’s living room in Queens, had pulled out his small brown prescription bottles from beneath a table. He has leukemia, which, his father said, manifested itself after the family left Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake that ravaged the country. 

“It began with a cough,” Danielo’s father, Paul Eddy Morpeau, 47, said. “We’re from Haiti, where it’s rarely cold, and we thought it was normal after living in New York.” 

But the coughing, which began in September 2010, six months after the family’s arrival in Queens, only grew, and Danielo became weaker. 

“He never got better,” Mr. Morpeau said. “Only worse.” 

After two months of continual coughing and a growing fatigue, Danielo had blood tests at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center. When the results came back, in December 2010, he was rushed on doctors’ orders to the hospital. 

“I remember that day,” Mr. Morpeau said. “I was at work and I left immediately to the hospital. We were told he had cancer.” 

With a few hugs, kisses and tears, Mr. Morpeau, his wife, Benodette Morpeau, and their daughter, Ondine, watched as Danielo was taken into isolation for treatment. 

“I could only take my Bible with me,” Danielo recalled. 

He spent seven months getting treatment as his family, wrapped in sterile clothes from head to toe, remained by his side and prayed for his recovery. 

The process was grueling, Ms. Morpeau, 47, said as she, too, sat on the futon, which serves as Danielo’s bed and is next to a small folding cot where Ondine, 16, sleeps. 

Ms. Morpeau began crying as she looked through pictures of Danielo in the hospital. He was unconscious in nearly all the photos. He was also bald and skinny, with tubes protruding from his arms and nose. His sister is sitting next to him in one photo, watching. That is all they could do for months, Ms. Morpeau said. 

“I came with my sick son and every day he’s getting worse,” she said she remembers thinking to herself. “We didn’t come here expecting to have a sick son.” 

It was an ordeal to watch him suffer in a new country while he was unable to communicate, said Ms. Morpeau, who speaks Creole and French. It was also challenging to live someplace that did not feel like home, she said. 

The Morpeaus are coping with haunting memories of the earthquake as they try to build a new life in a one-bedroom apartment that sits atop a church. Ms. Morpeau had been a teacher when her school crumbled in the quake. Mr. Morpeau had worked as a network administrator for the nonprofit organization CARE Ayiti. When they arrived in Queens, they struggled to find work and pay rent. That was all overshadowed by Danielo’s illness. 

But his parents said the reason he had the opportunity to beat cancer was because he was in the United States. 

“Cancer is a death sentence in Haiti,” Mr. Morpeau said. “There’s no hope.” 

The Morpeaus came to the United States with the intention of applying for the temporary protected status given to Haitians after the earthquake, which they received. 

The mother and sister of Mr. Morpeau live in Far Rockaway, Queens, but he said he could not rely on relatives for financial help during Danielo’s treatment. “Many families were stretched,” said Sylviane Mauriol, the family’s caseworker at Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens, one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. She added, “It was about means and the state of the economy.” 

But the Morpeaus did get emotional support from their relatives and a Haitian earthquake survivors support group created by caseworkers at Catholic Charities. Danielo’s homecoming from the hospital in July, however, did not put an end to the family’s challenges. Mr. Morpeau had lost his job around that time because his employment authorization card had expired. 

The family, ineligible for public assistance or benefits, had relied solely on Mr. Morpeau’s income from his security job at Kennedy International Airport to pay the $800 rent. But the family fell behind. Ms. Mauriol used $400 in Neediest Cases money to pay half the back rent, while Catholic Charities paid the balance. 

“It’s not easy for us,” Mr. Morpeau said, “and that money was very helpful.” 

The creators of the Haitian support group, Lystra Madoo-Devine and John Woolley, helped Mr. Morpeau find another job as a security officer after he renewed his employment authorization card. Ms. Morpeau is attending a home health aide program in Brooklyn. 

Danielo’s leukemia is in remission, but he continues to get therapy, covered by the state’s Child Health Plus insurance program. He now has a full head of hair, and is attending Intermediate School 238. 

The rest of the Morpeaus are doing better, too, as they strive to help those left behind in Haiti. 

“We have hope and each other,” Mr. Morpeau said. “God helps us. God can do anything.”

Click here to view the original article, published in The New York Times.