A 52 year old Brazilian economist named Régis Feitosa has lost his three children to cancer within a period of 5 years while he is himself, battling cancer and was first diagnosed with chronic leukemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2009. All four family members learned in 2016 they suffer from a rare genetic disorder that increases the risk a person and their family have at developing cancer. The disorder, Li-Fraumeni syndrome, affects only 5 in 20,000 families across the globe.
His oldest daughter, Dr. Anna Carolina Feitosa, died from a brain tumor at the age of 25 on November 19 while his son, Pedro Feitosa, succumbed to brain cancer on November 30, 2020. Feitosa's youngest daughter, Beatriz Feitosa, was just 10 years old when she died on June 24, 2018 after battling acute lymphocytic leukemia.
"In four and half years, I lost all my children,' a grieving Régis told BBC News Brazil. The lamenting father of three deceased children added that doctors told him he could live up to years with his own form of cancer had "a slow progression". Unfortunately for his children, they weren't "lucky" like their father, as the progression of their own forms of cancer was rapid. Regis also said that he feels guilty for passing the disease to his kids, who couldn’t defeat cancer.
Watching all of your children die is a harrowing experience. We hope that the economist, Régis Feitosa, finds the fortitude to bear his losses.
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