Ash Santora

✨Gianna Update ✨ Our baby girl officially has ONE more round of chemo!!! Her second lung surgery is scheduled for October 21st. We are not excited about another surgery, but we are praying that once this node is out, that is the last we will ever see of them. Thinking back these last few months and what she has endured for the SECOND time doesn’t seem real. She is such a little badass, but we need her to fight a little bit longer. We secured MEPACT !!! But not without a major roadblock…(because why not?) the immunotherapy treatment takes 9 months. We have it secured for MSK, not Florida. So as of this moment I am working diligently to get it for her in Gainesville at UF. But if I can’t, she will receive MEPACT at MSK and we will have to stay in NYC. She told me today so many things are working against us in this aspect. I cannot explain how hard it is living in two places at once, and living two separate lives. Trying to be present for all three of our children and living in every single moment. I am back in NYC as of yesterday and Kenny is going back to Jax, our third switch. Every time it gets harder and harder leaving a piece of our hearts in each city. As Gianna continues her fight, we’re incredibly grateful for everyone who has supported our family. With ongoing treatment in NYC, being away from work & switching places, and the financial strain of maintaining life in two places, the expenses continue to add up. Every donation, share, and prayer means more than you know. Thank you for helping us focus on what matters most, Gia kicking cancers ass…again!!! We are so grateful from the bottom of our hearts for all the support!!! Please keep our baby girl and our family in your prayers. One day at a time. We. Fight. Together. Always. ️

We just celebrated our girl turning 11. We had so much fun but this was not how we envisioned it. She contracted E. coli the week before and wasn’t feeling well but she was able to feel better for her special day. We are on day 5 of 5 chemos. Cycle 3, which means she is half way and has 3 cycles left of chemo!!! Her scans are scheduled for the first week in September to look at the lung node on her right lung and to determine the course of action for surgery. She has been complaining of jaw pain and shoulder pain where the tumor was removed. So they will be scanning that also. While my girl is fighting here in NYC, there is another part of this that has been absolutely tearing me apart. Home, my babies. My Dahlia flower and my Jackie boy. Kenny and I switch as much we can, but it’s so expensive to fly back and forth. I have exhausted every foundation to help and the ones that specialize in flights won’t help if Gianna isn’t on the flight…and she can’t be. She can’t leave NYC until her trial and chemo are finished. She longs to go home. She misses her siblings and friends. When I get to go home, I get a little taste of normalcy. Of school drop offs/pick ups and making dinner. Talking to them about their days and spending weekends at the beach. But then that also means a piece of my heart is still in NYC and she doesn’t get to be home, to have normalcy again. The guilt I feel getting to have that and she doesn’t. Walking by her room and the heaviness of it. Crying over her lunchbox the last time I was home, because she should be in 6th grade right now with her friends. When I leave home and fly back to NYC it’s devastating and vice versa. Each version is me leaving my children, thousands of miles away. As a mother, the pain is unlike any other and unless you live in this world you cannot begin to understand. Gianna is here fighting this fucking monster and Jackson and Dahlia are fighting for their sister and mom to come home, for the life before cancer tore into our home uninvited. If there is one thing this has taught me watching her fight, it’s that perspective will get you so far in this journey. The determination, courage and strength she has to pull out of herself every day is what keeps me fighting. It’s what I make sure to tell my other children to dig down deep and find. I long for the day I get to bring her home and I can have all three of my children together again. Until then we fight together, always. Day. By. Day. Our go fund me is still active in my bio, between flights, medical care (our insurance doesn’t cover) & living expenses here in nyc, we are so grateful for the army we have walking with us in her fight.