In 2012, Carlos Alvarez woke up in his Greenfield home in the middle of the night with no feeling in his legs. He cried out for his mom, who for a moment thought her son was just joking. “She looked at me after a while and was like, ‘This isn’t a joke.’” After several blood tests, Alvarez found out that the seizing response in his legs was due to cancer.

 

He was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at age 15. As he went through treatment, Alvarez met other kids from his town with cancer. “When I was at Stanford [Medical Center], there were three kids from Greenfield there,” says Alvarez, now 22.

 

According to kidsdata.org, a database that collects national and state statistics on children’s health, Monterey County has the fifth-highest pediatric cancer rate in the state: 20.4 cases per 100,000 children. Leukemia is the most common. While Alvarez and his doctors don’t know exactly what caused his cancer, some South County residents have long suspected pesticides.

 

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