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She beat it initially with radiation and surgery.
But the disease wasn’t done. It came back earlier this year.
Today, following a second surgery, her cancer is in remission, and Ortiz is feeling optimistic.
“I’m just hoping for the best,” she said. “I feel good. I’m walking better.”
Walking so well, in fact, that it was a joy this time to cross that graduation stage.
“The last surgery actually improved my mobility,” she said.
‘I didn’t want anyone to know’
As a student at Broken Arrow High School, Ortiz played bass clarinet in the Pride of Broken Arrow marching band.
She loved band life, she said, and cherishes the memories, including getting to march in the 2017 Rose Parade in California.
It was during summer band practice in 2018 that Ortiz, who would be a senior in the fall, first noticed the pain behind her left knee.
“I just thought it was a pulled muscle or something from marching,” she said. But it didn’t go away, even after fall marching season was over.
Doctors, including an orthopedist, couldn’t give her an answer. Finally, she was sent to an oncologist, who ordered a biopsy.
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