Huffington Magazine Issue 9 | Page 82

Blaise Benza, 21, a former Briarcliff student, battled for eight months with leukemia. lanova. His persistence, or stubbornness, allowed him to move ahead with his peers to the 10th grade, even though he spent the majority of 9th grade at Columbia University Medical Center. It also cost $1.5 million to pay for his treatment and months of aggressive chemotherapy to get him to where he is now. “We’re not sure if he can have children because of the timeliness of this whole thing. We HUFFINGTON 08.12.12 don’t know the long term effects that this illness had on his heart, his system in total,” Benza says. “So while we are very thankful that he is here and we’re thrilled, we don’t know what the long term effect is. To kind of say that he’s healed, and that’s all we want, well, that’s not really all we want.” The Benzas have not filed a lawsuit against Briarcliff but they haven’t dismissed the idea either. “If I had found out two years ago, before they closed the whole thing down that these kids were sick and I didn’t know about it, I SUDDEN DEATH