------------------------------------------------------------------ Some things that many people know about Carolina: ------------------------------------------------------------------ -- She was born (June 2, 1982) in Bryan, TX and grew up in Medellin, Colombia (until age 9) and La Paz, Bolivia (until age 18). -- She learned English as a second language while attending American schools in South America. -- She has a sister (Monica) who currently lives in TX and a brother (Daniel) who currently lives in Australia. -- She works for NASA — originally at the Johnson Space Center in TX, then at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in CA, and currently at the Goddard Space Flight Center in MD. -- She has a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University, specializing in Guidance, Navigation, and Control. -- She is married to Daniel Araya and they have two kids, Leila (11) and Oliver (8), and live in Highland, MD. -- Above all, family and friends are the most important things to her in life and she treasures spending time with them.
---------------------------------------------------------------- Some things that few people know about Carolina: ---------------------------------------------------------------- -- She has mild “synesthesia” where she sees numbers as colors. -- She has a very strong sense of smell and hates pickles and any “cold food” smell. -- She once applied to be an astronaut and was invited to JSC for an interview, something only 10’s of people get called to do out of 10,000+ that apply. -- She hates any and all video games except Super Mario World for original SNES that she played as a kid and sort of tolerates as an adult. -- Her Colombian grandmother, “Tita,” was her favorite person in life. -- Her Aunt, "Tia Vicky," has been like a mother to her since she was born. -- Her favorite chocolate is from Bolivia (“El Ceibo”). -- In winter, she loves skiing and is most happy on the green trails. -- In summer, she loves to swim and be at the pool or the beach. -- She loves plants but struggles to keep them alive. -- She loves music and playing the piano.
----------------- The Cancer: ----------------- She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October 2021 and referred to a specialist team of doctors at Johns Hopkins. The disease was “locally advanced” (~stage 3) when it was discovered via CT scan and biopsy after years of lower back pain and GI discomfort that were misdiagnosed in 2020 as “gluten intolerance.”
At the height of Covid (before vaccines), she started 6 months of aggressive chemotherapy and radiation treatment with the goal of pursuing surgery to remove her cancer. On the day of her pre-surgical consultation (June 24, 2022), her CT scan from just 2 days prior showed the disease had metastasized to her liver, which automatically made her ineligible for surgery. She went through another 4 months of chemotherapy with her Hopkins team of doctors willing to give her a chance at surgery if the tumors did not spread further. That failed and by the end of 2022 she was forced to look for clinical trials.
In 2023, she participated in 3 different clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health, with the most intensive an immunotherapy treatment in January 2023 that required her to be hospitalized for several weeks. The last clinical trial she took part in was a new drug called “metarrestin” that targets metastatic disease and also required hospitalization. That trial was stopped for her in January 2024 when CT scans showed continued disease progression. Of all the interventions and treatments that she has participated in over the last 2.5 years, some slowed but none reversed the steady progression of her disease.
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