Ceres teen’s path to cancer recovery leads to ‘Walking Dead’

A 2 a.m. limo ride from Ceres to San Francisco International Airport. About two hours sitting in SFO, waiting to catch a 6 a.m. flight to Georgia, with a one-hour layover in Austin.

At the end of that journey, many a traveler could be feeling like a zombie.

But 19-year-old Joe Murillo wasn’t sweating the early Friday departure. (Well, maybe a bit, as this is his first flight.) He’s too excited about the reason for the trip: to meet Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl Dixon on the hit AMC series “The Walking Dead,” on Saturday.

The trip to Georgia – courtesy of the Make-A-Wish Foundation – is about the only silver lining to the dark cloud of illness Joe has fought his way through. Shortly before turning 18, he was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma, said grandmother Tamara Irwin, and doctors found tumors on his spine, a kidney, lungs and brain.

That diagnosis of a life-threatening illness at age 17 made Joe eligible for the Make-A-Wish program, and doctors urged the family to apply. “Diagnosed a month later, he wouldn’t have qualified,” Irwin says.

Reaching this point of having the wish fulfilled took some time. “Joe had to get well enough to travel (he’s been in remission since June 2014) and then we had to wait until they were filming again,” she says. “This trip has been a year in the making.”

When asked by Make-A-Wish to pick a wish to have fulfilled, it didn’t take long for Joe to settle on meeting Reedus. The actor’s “Walking Dead” character has been an inspiration to the young man.

“He’s a warrior, a fighter. That really helped him through his chemotherapy,” Irwin says. “Our whole family is crazy about ‘The Walking Dead,’ and I think a lot of that has to do with Joe’s obsession with it.”

“Obsession?” Joe replies from across the family’s living room on Thursday afternoon, mock indignation in his tone.

Well, having watched the entire series about half a dozen times, as Joe has, can earn one that label.

‘He has no fear’

But Joe agrees that he’s looked up to zombie hunter extraordinaire Daryl Dixon – and Reedus.

“He’s my favorite character. ... He’s a badass, consistently, not flip-flopping like some of the other characters,” he says. “He’s consistently doing heroic things. He has no fear. When a horde of zombies was attacking the farm, he didn’t flinch, while others panicked. ... He’s a fighter who refuses to give up.”

And Reedus, the actor behind the crossbow-wielding zombie slayer?

“From what I’ve seen, he’s one of those actors who didn’t let fame go to his head. He really appreciates fans,” Joe says.

Joe is making the trip with his mother, Jennifer Rettig, grandmother Irwin and a cousin. None of the four has an inkling about whether they’ll be meeting Reedus by themselves or as part of an event with a few other Make-A-Wish recipients. Nor do they know how long the meeting will be.

One thing they’ve been told is the meeting will be at Dave & Busters, a restaurant/game arcade chain that Irwin describes as Funworks for adults. Joe lets himself imagine playing air hockey with the actor.

“I don’t even know what I’m going to say to him,” Joe says. “In the moments when it happens, I tend to get nervous.”

His grandmother elaborates. She got him tickets to see pop violinist Lindsey Sterling in Monterey, including a meet-and-greet. “When he got to meet her, he got tongue-tied.”

He wasn’t afflicted that way when he learned he’d be getting his wish. “I’ve told everybody – all my friends – about it,” Joe says. “How could I not talk about it?”

The four-day trip, which will include a tour of “Walking Dead” film locations, will provide much more to tell and many photos to share. “Make-A-Wish wants us to provide them with 50 photos so they can make a scrapbook for him,” Irwin says.

Illness beyond cancer

Joe’s health issues far predate his lymphoma diagnosis.

He was born with an underlying immune deficiency illness, Irwin says, and goes to the UC San Francisco Medical Center every three weeks to receive immunities from others. That happens through IVIG (intravenous immunoglobulin) infusions from the plasma of about 1,000 or more blood donors.

For years, Irwin says, the immune deficiency illness went undiagnosed. Doctors thought Joe had lymphoma at age 10, then again at 13, but results were negative both times.

“I think they thought that this last time was going to be negative, too,” she says.

Joe, then a Central Valley High School student, started having back pain and went to doctors a few times. “Then one day he was walking down the hall (at home) and just fell; his legs stopped working,” Irwin says.

He was able to walk with assistance, but “it got worse pretty fast,” she says, and Joe ended up in a wheelchair for about six months.

“Toward the end, I started not to need it,” Joe says.

His lymphoma was treated entirely through chemotherapy.

Joe graduated from Central Valley in spring last year, although he wasn’t feeling well enough to walk the stage.

Today, he says he feels “about as normal as I can be.” He has permanent nerve damage to his spine from the tumor.

“I don’t remember what it’s like to walk normally,” he says.

He had to learn to walk again, his grandmother says, then asks him if he remembers how difficult it was.

“I don’t want to remember,” he replies. “It’s nothing but bad memories.”

But of the weekend ahead, she says, “This will be a good memory.”

This story was originally published June 11, 2015 at 4:07 PM with the headline "Ceres teen’s path to cancer recovery leads to ‘Walking Dead’."