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Thaline Moreira da Silva, at 30 years old, was a beautiful woman with a symmetrical face and smile.
However, when she was studying in Australia, she suffered a terrible headache.
She thought it was a migraine, as the headache was so strong that it caused her to vomit.
She went to the doctor about it, but they said the same thing: it was a migraine.
But the next day, it was still there. She kept vomiting, and at that point she’d lost 18 pounds. She collapsed in her room, and was taken to the hospital by an ambulance.
“They noticed I had some mild paralysis on my left side, with an asymmetrical smile, which was very unusual for me,” said Thaline.
She was diagnosed with grade IV Glioblastona Multiforme—one of the most aggressive brain tumors. She was sent to surgery to remove the tumor immediately.
After recovering from surgery, she was sent to multiple appointments with different doctors.
She needed another surgery, and scheduled it for December 17.
But it was then that she ran into a problem.
Thaline is from Brazil originally. She was too ill to go back to her home country to get surgery, but if she stayed in Australia, her insurance wouldn’t pay for it. This would leave her with a huge hospital bill.
So, like so many others, she set up a GoFundMe. After having the page active for just 12 days, she raised $97,000. She is using the money to pay for her second operation, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, anti-nausea tablets, and physiotherapy and occupational therapy after all of her treatments.
The excess money, she says, will go to the Cancer Council of Australia.
Thaline’s form of brain cancer is aggressive, and often returns. But she plans to fight it, and is thankful for the support of everyone who donated.
“It fills me up of love, gratitude, and motivation, the messages of encouragement, I read them all and I treasure them.
“I hope everyone who donated knows that if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have this second chance of life.”
While she waits in Australia for surgery and during her recovery, she’ll be joined by her sister and her parents. And she remains positive.
“You need to have a moment where you just break down and cry because it’s all part of accepting what’s going on. You realize crying over it all won’t help as well, so when you wake up in the morning you are ready to push forward with everything else and face this head-on. So if you catch me off-guard, with a secret camera, chances are you’ll still see me smiling.”
