Ana Maria "the Star" De Melo Ana Maria "the Star"

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting! 


Ana Maria "the STAR" has a rare cancer called GIST Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors. We learned of this in December 2013 and she had an intestinal tumor surgically removed.  When we received the results , we learned that she had this rare type of disease. She started treatment to help maintain the disease and keep it from spreading.  She started taking an oral chemo tablet daily, called Gleevac, which she took until the beginning of 2017.  In January of 2017, we learned that the disease was progressing and tried a new type a treatment called Sutent.  The disease appeared in different locations including the liver and small intestine, among others.  From that point, she was being monitored and scanned, and for the most part, the treatment was doing its job. Tumors were shrinking and responding well to the treatment.  In early October, she started to develop symptoms and after a scan, it appeared that one stubborn tumor was reacting differently to the treatment. We set up this page to try and streamline communication. We know that everyone loves Ana and we are hopeful  and optimistic about this opportunity to remove the tumors surgically so that we can start celebrating and getting things back to normal.  As always, feel free to contact us at anytime, but we do hope that this website will help inform our friends and family of the current situation.  Ana is having surgery on November 16th and we anticipate her hospital stay will be no longer than 7 days. She will be treated at Stanford and we can pass along information after the success of the surgery. Thanks so much for the support!