Maya’s Story

In April 2024, Maya was diagnosed with high risk Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) b-cell type with a rare genetic mutation. Maya had just entered the “maintenance” phase in summer of 2025 when she relapsed. A lumbar puncture came back irregular and once again the Cayetano family was thrown right back into more intensive treatment again.

It was determined that Maya would need a bone marrow transplant but a donor had to be identified first. Since the news of relapse, Maya has done one month of reinduction (more chemotherapy) to get her back into remission, 5 lumbar punctures, 2 bone marrow aspirations and 2 months of high dose methotrexate to keep her in remission until her donor was ready. Thankfully, although none of her sisters were a match, a 10/10 match was found for Maya through the registry!

On October 12, 2025 Maya was admitted to start pre conditioning for her transplant. She is going through 3 treatments of cranial radiation, 3 twice a day treatments of full body radiation and 4 days of chemo before getting her new cells on October 28th. From there, she will remain in the hospital until cleared to go home.

What a journey this has been and continues to be for the Cayetano family. Maya is a twin and also has an older sister and a younger sister, all between the ages of 3 and 5! They have a strong bond and the four of them are represented in the four birds on Maya’s shirt. Through all of the strain this diagnosis continues to put on her family, they choose to continue walking forward by faith rather than by sight. They have learned firsthand that we truly cannot see the road ahead of us but we can decide how we will approach whatever comes our way!