Right before she lost 38 of those pounds over four months, doctors had told her family she had a mere two months to live from what they thought was untreatable stage four cancer.
But it was not due to her experience as a cancer survivor that Nilla Marie stood out to Springstowne Middle School wrestling coach Jason Guiducci about a year later.
In Nilla Marie, as a new seventh grader from Fairfield, Guiducci saw a driven and athletic recruit for the school's wrestling team.
Guiducci said in an interview that a long time elapsed before he learned that Nilla Marie had tackled cancer and survived, all before age 11.
"There was no sign -- she's a humble kid who didn't really want any attention," Guiducci said. "Wrestling is one of the toughest things you'll ever do, and for Nilla to come back from cancer to do this is amazing."
But recruit her he did -- over protests from Nilla Marie's mother that wrestling was a "boy's sport" where her daughter could be injured.
Her mother -- Marilou Mercado -- had special cause to worry. It had been such a short time since Nilla Marie had recovered from months of intense chemotherapy for what turned out to be a treatable stage three cancer.
But even Nilla Marie did not know that her family had been told she had such a short time to live when her cancer was first detected. Soon after, the diagnosis was changed and surgery was scheduled.
"Everyone else was miserable, mopey, crying," Nilla Marie said with a shrug. "I told them, I don't know about you, but I'm fine."
Although in that first year Nilla Marie lost all her wrestling matches, by the end of her eighth grade year this month, the recent middle school graduate nabbed national, state and local medals.
"Wrestling has made these two middle school years not just one of the best, but THE best experience of my entire life," Nilla Marie wrote in an essay for the wrestling team. "As more and more tournaments passed by, I grew to love the sport, the torturous training, the pretty medals ... everything that had to do with wrestling."
Less than three years ago, at age 10, Nilla Marie's family watched the painful treatment for ovarian yolk sac tumor that had spread throughout Nilla Marie's abdomen before it was discovered.
Between surgery, where doctors removed the pink veiny three-and-a-half-pound tumor, and chemotherapy, Nilla Marie went from
137 pounds to a mere 99.
Weighing in at a healthy and muscled 143 pounds last week, Nilla Marie affectionately calls her banished tumor "the pig."
Both those days are past, and wrestling has taken up the forefront of Nilla Marie's imagination. She hopes to join the wrestling team at Napa's Vintage High School in the fall, and continue her training.
Marilou Mercado laughs now when she remembers praying for her daughter to lose her matches right away, thereby reducing her daughter's chances of getting hurt. Now, punching the air in victory and cheering for her daughter's imaginary matches, Mercado said from the family's American Canyon home that she's grown to love the sport along with her daughter.
"Well, here we are, we're recovered, and thank God," Mercado said.
Contact staff writer Jessica A. York at (707) 553-6834 or
jyork@thnewsnet.com