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Ana Luiza, 29 years old, has been diagnosed with cystic adenoid carcinoma, a malignant tumor that usually develops in the salivary glands
Ana Luiza Prestes, 29 -year -old dental surgeon, lived her first months of motherhood when she received a diagnosis that changed her life: cystic adenoid carcinoma, a rare malignant tumor that reaches only 4.5 out of 100,000 people, according to the data of Cleveland Clinic (USA). The disease, which usually develops in the salivary glands, was discovered in October 2023, when Ana Luiza was 28 years old and her daughter had turned into just over a year of life.
“It was very difficult to look at my daughter and imagine that she can grow without a mother,” says Ana Luiza, enthusiastic, in an interview with Earth. Originally from San Bernardo do Campo (SP), it reports that the path to the diagnosis was long and painful. “My diagnosis was too long, I took a long time to find out what was going on,” he recalls.
A few days after the birth, Ana Luiza began to try a strange numbness on one side of the sky of her mouth. “I thought it was strange, but a week has passed since my daughter was born, so her head was somewhere else,” he recalls. The months passed and the initial discomfort evolved into something more worrying: persistent pain on the left side of the face.
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“I spent days without pain, and suddenly I came back. After a while I started trying pain in the mouth of my mouth, in the region of the salivary gland. But I thought I felt that pain when I was thirsty. Only when my daughter was about a year, this pain was worse. Then I understood that something was wrong.
After months of persistent symptoms, Ana Luiza has finally obtained the answers, but not expected. A tomography requested by the octopus has revealed a 5 cm tumor hosted on her face. The medical relationship brought it to a new specialist: a surgeon for the head and neck, a qualified professional to treat the most complex diseases in the facial region.
It was in this consultationNext to her husband, whom Ana Luiza heard the words that would have transformed her journey: “Your case is the most delicate”, explained the surgeon. “You have cancer and we will have to perform an extremely complex intervention.”
“I started to tremble. I hadn’t yet thought about the word cancer. It’s too heavy to hear it. When I remember it was as if I saw the scene out of my body, because I don’t forget anything, I relived again. It was something that marked me a lot. The environment was dark, I have a good taste in my mouth, my stomach turned and my body was frozen.”
The doctor explained that it was necessary to identify the type of cancer before proceeding with the treatment and that the next day it would have already been hospitalized to perform the biopsy. Ana has returned home with the difficult mission of telling her parents the diagnosis. “It was the worst day of my life. My parents were afraid, but they didn’t cry and they gave me strength. They said:” It doesn’t matter, let’s do everything to be healed. “The strength that my family gave me was essential for my healing,” he recalls.
Surgery and treatments
Ana found a medical specialist in Curitiba in the treatment of cancer. After moving to the city, he received the final result of the biopsy and discovered that he had adenoid cystic carcinoma. “He does not respond to chemotherapy, so they informed me that they should have been aggressive in surgery, that is, to remove the tumor and a large region around, so that they had no cells that would allow him to develop again. And then I had to go through radiotherapy,” explains the treatment plan.
The medical team urgently performed surgery. The procedure removed the tumor with the safety margin, removing half of the jaw and the nearby structures to avoid the residual cells, including the orbit floor, the sky of the mouth, the teeth, the bone that supports the nose and the one that keeps the left eye. The intervention lasted about 12 hours.
For facial reconstruction, surgeons used a segment of Ana fibula and leather for the legs to reconstruct the oral cavity. The recovery requested seven days of hospitalization, including the period of intensive care. “It was a very large struggle, I used a probe to feed these days in the hospital, I used tracheostomy and I couldn’t speak,” reports post -operative challenges.
A few days after the first surgery, at home, the girl’s graft stopped receiving blood irrigation, which required a new urgent procedure. This time, the doctors used only the skin and muscles for reconstruction, resulting in seven days of hospitalization. Subsequently, a third graft was needed to complete the repair in a small area of ​​the face. After surgical recovery, Ana started a complementary treatment with 30 radiotherapy sessions.
“In March 2024 I completed the radio, I did my exams and I still have no cancer. But I have to be later for at least five years to get more security than I am free from him. So there are more four years of follow -up -Up,” he explains.
Ana says she resigned after everything that happened. “After all, it is difficult to look for something that was the same in me. There is an Ana Luiza before and another later, completely different, which was rediscovered every day, because it is a difficult journey physically, but mentally and spiritually it is much more difficult.”
He also says that faith was very important to stay in cure. “Diagnosis is not a death sentence. I think that all those who are diagnosed with us, we are afraid of it when we know the disease. But there is life after cancer, and it can be a very beautiful life. Today my way of seeing everything is very different. I see myself more confident, stronger, I see a much bigger God because I have crossed all this. There is evil forever.
Source: Terra
Ben Stock is a lifestyle journalist and author at Gossipify. He writes about topics such as health, wellness, travel, food and home decor. He provides practical advice and inspiration to improve well-being, keeps readers up to date with latest lifestyle news and trends, known for his engaging writing style, in-depth analysis and unique perspectives.
