2 generations, one fight: Love and faith fuel cancer battle

By Alexia Tsiropoulos

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    BUCKINGHAM, Florida (WBBH) — A Buckingham woman and her grandmother are living with cancer at the same time, leaning on each other and their strong faith for strength.

Chelsea Martinez and her grandmother, Natalia Flores, spend most of their time together.

“We drink coffee together,” Martinez said. “We love Astros baseball — Houston Astros.”

Although they do nearly everything together, they never imagined they would be fighting cancer at the same time.

“Because of her age, I know that it could take a toll on her,” Martinez said about her grandmother. “I just hope, and I pray that it doesn’t. It isn’t as harsh on her as it has been on me. But we’re slowly coming up out of the water for my diagnosis.”

Martinez first noticed symptoms in September 2023.

“I went to Halloween Horror Nights with some of my family members,” she said. “We walked about eight miles. About a week or so later, I started having pain that kept shooting down to my foot. So I finally went to the doctor.”

An MRI revealed a serious diagnosis: stage 4 brain cancer.

“I was working for a local cancer facility, so when I went in, I accessed my chart before they even diagnosed me,” she said. “And I diagnosed myself. I called all my family, saying I have cancer.”

Her cancer had spread to her spine. She underwent six months of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation.

“It’s called proton radiation, where it just targets a spot on my spine,” she said. “I got really lucky on that end because a lot of people have to undergo plain radiation and get burned, and thankfully, it only burned my spine.”

After a two-year battle, her most recent biopsy showed promising results.

“Right now, I have stitches in my head,” she said. “I just had a brain biopsy a couple of weeks ago. And thankfully, it was good news. It was not cancer in my brain, but I still have a little bit of tumor in my spine that we’re working on. I’m on medication for it. I’m on all kinds of vitamins. So, hopefully, I’ll be out of the storm soon, and I’ll be into sunnier days — and I’ll be able to help out more with my grandma’s journey.”

But just as Martinez began to see the light at the end of the tunnel, her grandmother received a diagnosis of her own.

“Well, mine just started,” Flores said. “So I don’t know. I haven’t experienced any pain or anything.”

After noticing a spot on her eye, doctors diagnosed Flores with T-cell lymphoma.

“They can’t even stage it at this point because it’s running through her blood,” Martinez said. “It hasn’t found a place to anchor in her body to start forming.”

Flores is beginning her cancer journey at 85, but together, she and her granddaughter are holding on to hope and faith.

“This disease is a thief,” Flores said. “It takes your hair. It takes your pride. It takes everything. It strips you down to everything — to where you have nothing but God.”

Together, through coffee, baseball, and faith, their spirits remain unbreakable. Because in this fight, they are not alone — they have each other.

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