Help Ilyana fight rare stage 4 lung cancer

Hello, my name is Guilson. I am a father of two and husband to my beautiful wife who is currently fighting for her life, this is her story.

There’s nobody stronger than a cancer patient who receives the heavy news that their life will never be the same. The awful side effects caused by treatments and changes to the body leaving scars for life. This is one of many reasons why I look up to my wife, Ilyana, who has been fighting stage 4 lung cancer for 5 years.

At age 23, my wife was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer (Pulmonary Mucinous Cystadenocarcinoma), on May 22, 2019. Our first daughter was 8 months during this time. Here is something my wife felt after the sad news:

“I laughed, then joked, then I became angry. Afterwards I cried for maybe 3 minutes until I saw my daughter staring at me. Then I wiped away my tears, hugged her and decided that this was going to be one hell of a fight.” -Ilyana

We still do not know why my wife has lung cancer since she has never smoked and there is no family history for lung cancer. However, after having her tumors genetically tested, we found that she has a KRASG-12V mutation, which is rare and chemo resistant. My wife has been through 5 Biopsies with one causing her to bleed out on the surgical table due to a doctor’s mistake and 4 clinical trials with one causing her to have joint pain and damage to her eyesight. My wife has also had 3 lung surgeries with the first two being 2 individual lung wedge resections in 2019. The third surgery was a pulmonary lobectomy of her bottom and middle right lobes, in which they had to break her 4th and 5th rib and remove her 6th rib in order to gain access to her lungs. This was during thanksgiving of 2021 with a painful recovery as she developed allergies to many pain medications.

After the last lung surgery, all tumors that could be seen and felt were removed. She was in remission, and it was great news for our family. Through this fight our daughter had grown to be lonely and wanted a sibling so she could play with. We tried to give her as much love and affection between my wife’s treatments and appointments and me working. Sadly, it was not enough for our daughter, so my wife and I decided to try for a second baby. After a while we decided to stop trying as there were no results and we agreed to focus our love on our daughter that was needed. A couple months later we found out that my wife’s cancer came back resulting in 11 new tumors. After that we also found out that my wife was pregnant.

My wife went 8 months with no treatment, trying her best to have a healthy pregnancy. Her cancer center wanted to get her on treatment as soon as possible so they induced her, having our second daughter on 02-23-2023. After recovery, my wife was set with another clinical trial where appointments were scheduled to be every week.

Unfortunately, the tumors grew twice during the clinical trial. We also got the news that one of the tumors that grew is tucked up under the right side of her heart in the lungs. This specific tumor is cause for alarm because of its location, it is not a candidate for surgery or radiation, unless it can be reduced in size. She has been removed from the clinical trial due to tumor growth and has been put on Chemotherapy hoping to shrink the tumor regardless of the mutation being chemo resistant.

Because of treatment, effects of treatment and appointments, my wife is unable to work, so she stays home with the baby while our oldest goes to school. I work full-time and as soon as I am home, I take over helping with the kids and around the house. It has taken us this long to be brave to ask for help because we are the type of people that are hard on ourselves feeling we do not deserve the help unless it is earned. But now it goes beyond just us, we have two beautiful girls that we need to think about. The help we would receive would be used for medical bills, travel expenses, cost of living, and other bills. As the only provider it is difficult for us to keep up with the expenses that this life event brings. The help we will receive will also be used to find a different way to help my wife beat cancer while lifting some of the financial stress.

Our family thanks you for taking the time to read this and we greatly appreciate any donations, support, and positive energy.