I'm Riding For

Alhena Martinez

On December 17, 2015, Alhena was diagnosed with HLH, a rare autoimmune disease where her immune system attacked her body. She needed two bone marrow transplants, chemo, and high-dose steroids just to survive. Her odds weren’t good—only 30%—but she beat them. She fought harder than most people ever will in their whole lives. For 9 amazing years, she lived in remission. We thought we were done with life-and-death battles. We were wrong… It started with a small pain under her right breast. We thought it was muscle pain or scar tissue from her transplant line. She was in high school now, carrying heavy books—we weren’t overly worried. But to be safe, we went in for a scan. That’s when they found two small nodules in her lung.
 Pneumonia, they said.
A round of antibiotics helped—for a little while. But she wasn’t getting better.
And suddenly everything moved fast. Another scan. A planned biopsy. Then a cold pushed things back.
 On December 23, 2024, we landed in the ICU for the first time ever. Not even during her HLH battle had we experienced that. She could barely breathe. Her back hurt. We thought it was that backpack again. But it was fluid—filling her chest, crushing her lung and heart. Within minutes of emergency surgery, she’d filled an entire container with fluid. But she came out of it smiling, cracking jokes like the rockstar she is. It wasn’t over.
Another biopsy. Another surgery.
And then, the news no parent ever wants to hear: Cancer.
Not just any cancer—CIC-DUX4 sarcoma, an extremely rare and aggressive tumor in her chest wall. And just like that, we were back in a battle we thought we had already fought and won. Alhena doesn’t deserve this …no kid does. But she’s a fighter!!!!!!! She CAN and WILL beat this!!!