Elk Grove Teen with Kidney Disease Gets Room Makeover from Kings and Make-A-Wish

A UC Davis Medical School student taking an interest in one of her patients last year led to an Elk Grove family gaining a new member.

Brittany Lewis is a fourth-year medical school student, and met 17-year-old Demarye while on her rounds. Demarye has stage-four Chronic Kidney Disease, and Lewis said it was clear he wasn't consistently taking his medication; he was living with a cousin and also had been skipping school.

"As a medical team we decided he shouldn't return home, and then we had the dilemma of where should we send him? He ended up here." Lewis said. "At first he was reluctant. Now he realizes we care about him and want [him to be healthy]."

Lewis' parents already had two adopted children and have fostered children before, and quickly agreed to take Demarye in as a foster child.

Lewis said the 17-year-old is on a strict diet that she doubts she could follow, and has to take three rounds of medication each day.

"He can't go be a free kid–can't go hang out with people all day and not worry about it," she said.

On Friday, Demarye got a Sacramento Kings-themed entertainment room makeover courtesy of more than a dozen volunteers, the team and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Volunteers worked all day decorating the previously empty room, setting up a surround-sound system and 70-inch television, and assembling an arcade basketball game.

When it came time to surprise Damarye by revealing his room, he was speechless. Not just because former Kings player Bobby Jackson, Slamson and four Kings dancers were present, but because he's just a little shy.

"You can always tell if he gives you more words, it's a good day," said Quintin Lewis, his foster dad.

When it came time for Demarye to thank everyone, Jackson asked everyone in the room to turn away to put the teen more at ease. 

Demarye and his friends who were present were excited about the room, but volunteers with the Make-A-Wish Foundation said the idea had to be coaxed out of the teen.

"He didn't want to ask for too much," volunteer Cheryl Purifoy said. "We had to go, 'Come on, wish big.' "

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