Help Bryan beat Acute Myeloid Leukemia

On October 8th, 2024 my brother Bryan Da Silva was suddenly diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), after requesting some bloodwork be done due to recent symptoms of fatigue and loss of appetite. That afternoon he and his wife, Stina, were airlifted via helicopter from their home of Salt Spring Island to Vancouver General Hospital, where he has been receiving treatment ever since.

For those unfamiliar with AML, it is an aggressive form of cancer that affects the white blood cells and cannot be eradicated simply with one round of chemotherapy, and targeted radiation is not applicable to blood cancers. The chemo treatment aims to decimate the population of leukemia cells before a stem cell transplant can be performed.

After a successful round of induction chemotherapy, Bryan has now been discharged and is set to begin consolidation chemotherapy on Tuesday, November 19th 2024. Although Bryan is technically in remission, the road to recovery is long and uncertain. The wonderful doctors at VGH have advised that he will need to complete 1-3 more rounds (1 month each) of consolidation chemo while they search for a bone marrow donor. Once a match is found, he will spend another month as an in-patient at VGH for more chemo and a stem cell transplant.

Bryan and his wife are staying at an Airbnb next to the hospital so that he can easily make it to his treatments and follow-ups as he is unable to take public transit due to his compromised immune system. It is expected that he will need to stay near the hospital in Vancouver for at least 100 days following the stem cell transplant - this is to say, we are not sure when he will be able to go home to Salt Spring, and his return to work may be up to a year away.

As you can imagine, the financial strain of this situation is causing stress and grief during a time where Bryan and his family should be focusing on treatment and recovery. We are starting this GoFundMe in hopes of allowing his family the opportunity and resources to make it through the treatment, however long it takes, and to take the right steps to recovery when they finally make it home.

Many of you may know, Bryan has an incredibly kind and warm soul. He has an abundance of love for those around him and brings laughter into every room he enters. The amount of talent he possesses led him to many interests like music, gaming, art and of course cider making, which brought him and Stina to Salt Spring Island in B.C., where they made a wonderful life for themselves. Bryan’s patience, kindness and bravery has persevered throughout this tough time and will continue to give him strength to overcome this illness.

Bryan and Stina are incredibly grateful for the overwhelming emotional support they have received from all of their friends and family - the long journey ahead is lit with beacons of hope sparked by every message, phone call, card, and package, and they promise to keep fighting forward no matter what it takes.

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