Aug. 28--There are little reminders of 8-year-old Thomas Hearne all around his house. He has a habit of writing messages on scraps of paper and leaving them where his family members will find them.

For his big brother, he left this in the bathroom: "Dear Paul, thanks for playing with me -- Thomas."

For anyone who happened near a hole in a wall, there was a crude rendition of a skull and crossbones and the misspelled warning: "Dager." That's how Thomas spelled "danger."

The hole is one of the less significant problems with Thomas' home. Most of the walls are bare studs. A plastic sheet separates the living room from the unfinished construction that makes up much of the Hearne family's Camarillo house. They say the project was abandoned by a contractor who ran out of money, even after the family paid him up front for an addition that would have doubled the size of the house.

Yet, the abandoned construction zone in which the family of five has been living since last year is of secondary importance for the Hearnes. Thomas is fighting brain cancer.

"They're looking for a miracle and a lot of prayers," said Julie Monro, the Hearnes' next-door neighbor and a friend of the family since she moved to the neighborhood 11 years ago.

Symptoms appeared in June

Thomas started showing symptoms of illness in mid-June after his parents, Robert and Tish, and siblings Lauren, 14, and Paul, 12, returned from a trip to Disneyland to celebrate Thomas' birthday. Thomas was vomiting and felt weak. The Hearnes took him to an emergency room, where doctors told them he probably had a virus and sent him home. His condition didn't improve, and Thomas' parents took him back to the hospital on July 8.

"My wife just knew something was wrong and demanded an MRI," Robert said. "That's when they saw it."

Thomas' diagnosis was a cruel surprise for the family, which had been through a similar ordeal before. Tish is a six-year breast cancer survivor, and in the years since her diagnosis the entire family has been involved in Camarillo's local Relay for Life, part of a national fundraiser for the American Cancer Society.

"Tish is a fighter, Thomas is a fighter," said Nancy Wikholm, Tish's sister.

Thomas had a tumor at the base of his brain, toward the back of his head. The day after doctors discovered it, surgeons removed as much as possible. However, the cancer had spread through his brain and spinal cord.

"It would've been nice if it had just been the tumor," Robert said.

Thomas has not left Childrens Hospital Los Angeles since his treatment began. This week he was scheduled to begin his second round of chemotherapy. Robert hopes he will tolerate this dose better than he did the first, which gave him seizures.

Robert was wearing a Relay for Life T-shirt as he and friends worked on his house recently. He said Tish has reasoned that perhaps she got cancer first so she could help Thomas get through it.

"We're trying to make sense of it," he said.

Since Thomas' diagnosis, Monro and her husband, Mark, have spearheaded an effort to finish the Hearne house. Also helping are Tom McCook, who owns Thomas McCook Construction and lives on the same street as the Hearnes, and Robert Hearne's colleagues from the City of Oxnard Building and Engineering Department, where he is a civil engineer. Taft Electric and All American Roofing have agreed to donate materials and labor, Mark Monro said.

Weatherproofing needed

Those working on the project say it will probably cost more than $300,000 to finish the house, and workers who know construction trades are also needed. The first priority is to weatherproof the exterior so the work that has already been done can be preserved.

Meanwhile, Thomas and Tish are staying full time at Childrens Hospital. Thomas' siblings are with Wikholm in Camarillo, and Robert is staying part of the time at the half-finished house on Cielo Vista Court. Robert said Tish refuses to bring Thomas home to the dusty building that is only partially sealed off from the elements.

"If we had enough money, we could get them into this house by Christmas, maybe by Thanksgiving," said Jeff Pengilley, a structural engineer for the City of Oxnard, who is volunteering at the house. "It would be the best Christmas gift ever."

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