‘Please Send Pizza,' Says Young Cancer Patient's Sign in Hospital Window, Strangers Answer Call

One year and three months.

That is how long Viviana Navarrete has been at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego. She is 13 years old and has acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which requires chemotherapy.

“When I first started off, it was really hard and all I wanted to do was sleep,” Navarrete said.

She is eagerly awaiting a bone marrow transplant, and spending hours upon hours in the same patient room each day makes time pass by as slowly as you might imagine.

“It’s hard to not be bored here,” she said.

For a young teenager, she is open about the toll the hospital stay has taken on her mental well-being. She has days where she still feels like how she did in the first few months. They are difficult to get through.

“Sometimes I’m like, 'Why me? What did I do to deserve this?'” Navarrete said.

But, she does not allow herself to dwell too long on the negatives. She’s spunky and has learned to cope by keeping herself busy, whether that’s with video games or pulling pranks on her nurses.

Her latest project was a simple message on a few posters in her window for all to see, “PLEASE SEND PIZZA.”

Navarrete worked with a child life specialist at Rady Children’s to get the materials, then hung multiple posters in her window facing the street. They are complete with the address and room number: 3010 Children's Way #2138.

That’s when the first pizza came.

“You should have seen me, I was super excited,” said Navarrete, who said it was delivered right after a visit from a few members of the San Diego Padres. She added it is not confirmed that the pizza was sent from the team, but she likes to think it was too much of a coincidence to not be their doing.

Then a second pizza came. This time with an anonymous note attached.

“Dear girl with the pizza sign,” Navarrete read the letter aloud. “I am 26 now, but when I was 13, I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma and lost my leg as well as spent a year getting chemotherapy. I was always bored and I wish I would have thought to make a pizza sign.”

Navarrete wishes she knew who the kind person was so she could thank them not only for the tasty food, but also for the hope.

She added her favorite pizza place might be a tie between Domino’s and Blaze Pizza, but it isn’t a competition when it comes to her favorite toppings: Hawaiian-style pineapple and ham.