Zandra’s Story

Zandra's fierce courageous fight against DSRCT

“My daughter Zandra Wade had a bright future ahead of her.
A world champion in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and varsity and club volleyball player. We were excited for her future and had no idea the storm that was approaching us.

Two days before Christmas 2018, I heard the words no parent should ever have to hear, your daughter has cancer. I will never forget her screaming “No! Mom No!”. To make matters worse they diagnosed her with the wrong form of cancer. I had an uneasy feeling, things just weren't right on top of the fact they sent her home knowing her spleen was enlarged. So I took her to the top children's hospital in our hometown. They admitted her right away to the oncology floor. 24hrs later she woke up throwing up blood. They immediately transferred her to the ICU were she spent 38 days not allowed to eat of drink anything due to internal bleeding that the tumors were causing.

On Jan 2nd, 2019 Zandra was diagnosed with stage 4 Desmoplastic small round cell tumor also known as DSRCT. DSRCT is extremely rare and is considered terminal by most oncologist with a 5yr survival rate of only 15%. The average survival rate is only 12 to 18 months. The treatment plan was chemo, radiation then bone marrow transplant. The first chemo protocol failed her after 3 rounds. The 2nd chemo failed her after 11 rounds. In between all of this, she had to have her spleen removed along with stents in her kidneys. Her tumors were inoperable because it had spread and was completely wrapped around her pancreas. She had tumors on her abdomen that spread to her spleen, pelvis, spine, and kidneys. The cancer also spread to her bones and bone marrow.

Dr. Slokin at Sloan Kettering is the only DSRCT specialist in the world. She was consulting her doctors here along the way and had just started a clinical trial. Since there was nothing more that her doctors could do for her here we moved to NYC so she could enter the clinical trial. The trial also failed so we moved back home. This was all during the massive covid outbreak in NYC. We were home for only two weeks when her liver started to fail due to tumor burden. She had to have another surgery to put a stent in her liver. There was no slowing the progression of this horrific monster. Zandra was then sent home on hospice and gained her wings on May 22, 2020 fifteen days before her 17th birthday.

Zandra had a light that shined on everyone who knew her. We want to continue shining her light by helping others the way she would want us to. We are in the process of starting two nonprofits organization in her name.

I have made it my life's mission to spread awareness and help raise money for more research. Our children deserve more than 4%!

Forever 16.”

Written by Shana Wade, Zandra’s Mom