Prayers and Pennies for Penny's Cancer Recovery

Hi, my name is Margo (Margaret) Luera and I am fundraising for my niece Jennefer Villa and her daughter, my grandniece, Penelope (Penny) Cisneros.

Penny is a beautiful 5 year old, who until about 3 weeks ago was seemingly as healthy as she could be. Playing with her brother Kai and visiting cousins and just enjoying the life of a typical 5 year old. The first indication there might be anything going on physically was when her belly seemed to distend/bloat overnight. However, after appearing like she may have intestinal issues and Jenny watching that and trying to alleviate the swollen belly with diet and over the counter remedies, Penny then vomited bile, so Jenny took her to see the doctor.

After not hearing any bowel sounds, the doctor referred her to the hospital ER to have an ultrasound and when they saw her liver was enlarged, a Cat Scan was also ordered. The cat scan then revealed a tumor on her right kidney which was then determined to be a type of kidney cancer which affects children mostly under 15 - more specifically, nephroblastoma or Wilms' tumor. The tumor was 15cm in size (that's 6 inches around)!!

Penny was then air-flighted to Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth where she underwent more tests to determine the best course of action for the doctors to take. Thankfully, while the tumor was pushing against her liver, it had not spread outside of the kidney or to lungs, or any lymph nodes and was not affecting any of the blood vessels near it.

All praise and glory to God, Penny's surgery on Friday, 3/29, was successful! When they removed the tumor, it was 7-8 inches in diameter!! They also had to shave off a part of her liver due to the tumor starting to adhere to it, but thankfully, it was minimal.

Next in Penny's journey are radiation and chemo therapies. Radiation therapy is anticipated to last several weeks, but chemo therapy will be quite a bit longer - estimates are 28 weeks or more, depending on the final pathology results which are expected any day.

That said, Penny lives in Odessa, Texas and the radiation treatments will have to be performed in Dallas. While Jenny and Penny's dad, Mario, co-parent, they are a single income family and that income is going to be greatly affected with Jenny having to stay in the DFW metroplex with Penny for her treatments. Eventually, the goal is to have Penny back home in Odessa and have her chemo treatments performed at the Cook Children's satellite clinic in Midland but until they can get to that point, the expenses will continue to mount. And even then, while they will be less, they will still exist and continue to increase until Penny is fully recovered.

If you know my niece Jennefer, you know the last few years have not been easy for her. She, thankfully, still has her father, Abel, around to help out in every possible way he can, but she lost her mother, Debbie, and brother, Abrahm, to Covid in 2021 within a week of each other. I know if my sister Debbie was still here she would be going out of her way and doing everything possible to help Jenny and Penny.

So if you find yourself reading this and feel led to help out financially, it will be greatly appreciated and we pray God will bless you 10 times over for it. But even if you cannot help financially, please keep Penny and Jenny and their little family in your prayers - that will be appreciated beyond any words we can express. God bless you all and thank you for reading this post.