I never imagined I’d be writing this, but cancer doesn’t wait for anyone’s plans.

My mom, Thaissa dos Santos, is the light of our family: a single mother who somehow juggled five kids, multiple jobs, and a million whispered prayers without a hint of self-pity. She’s the woman who stayed up all night helping us finish our projects that we forgot to mention the day before they were due, who worked until 3am just to rush us all to school for 6am, just for her to clock back in again at 8am. She is the one who taught me that I can do anything in this world. She’s always believed in miracles. Now she needs one.

On February 8th, 2025, doctors found an aggressive Stage 4 breast cancer that has already spread to her lymph nodes, bones, and brain. Local hospitals, including Moffitt here in Florida, have done all they can, but the disease keeps pushing forward. We are desperately seeking other options and are looking first to Texas. MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston (the place where experimental trials and cutting-edge precision medicine happen every day) has accepted her as a potential patient. The very first evaluation, the key that unlocks those life-saving options, costs more than our entire annual income, and that’s only the beginning. They need the money upfront for treatment, and it is money that we do not have. We cannot continue to put this on hold. The longer we wait, the fewer options my mom has.

The world is brighter with her in it, and her five children still need her light. We’re asking for help covering the avalanche of medical costs so my Mom can have the opportunity to live a longer life. Every dollar is oxygen: moments of rest between chemo sessions, a seat on the plane to Houston, another day my baby brother gets to fall asleep listening to Mom tell a bedtime story. I need my mom in my life. I need her light in my life.

Please donate if you can, share if you can’t, and pray if you believe. Miracles often arrive disguised as ordinary people who decide to care.

From the bottom of our hopeful hearts,

Makeighly (and Natalia, Dominick, Kristian, Solomon)