Warrior Wednesday Spotlight - Iyra Rupesh Gondle

This week, we are highlighting Campaign Kid Iyra!

Iyra started her cancer journey on November 23rd, 2021 with what the doctors misdiagnosed Iyra with Wilm’s Tumor but her pathology report said differently. On December 3rd 2021 Iyra was officially diagnosed with Rhabdomyoscaroma.

Life for Iyra before cancer revolved around dancing, the movie Frozen and being a big sister to her newborn sister Nayna.

In 2021, not long after Iyra's baby sister was born Iyra started urinating blood along with blood clots. Iyra's parents took her to see Iyra's pediatrician who did a blood test and a urinalysis and diagnosed her with a UTI. Days later Iyra wasn't getting any better so her parents rushed her to the ER where they did extensive blood work and imaging where they confirmed Iyra had a cancerous tumor on her kidney. Iyra at the young age of 3 1/2 was diagnosed with Cancer on November 23rd 2021, with what the doctors thought was Wilms Tumor because of the location of the tumor but on December 3rd, 2021 after the pathology report came back Iyra’s official diagnoses was Rhabdomyoscaroma (RMS).  Rhabdomyoscaroma is the most common of soft tissue sarcomas in children. These tumors develop from muscle or fibrous tissue and can grow in any part of the body. The most common areas of the body to be affected are around the head and neck or within the reproductive areas but can develop anywhere in the body.

From the day of Iyra's diagnoses to her surgery date was one week and Iyra's protocol for treatment would be 42 weeks of chemotherapy and radiation. The day after Thanksgiving on November 25, 2021 Iyra's cancer journey began where she underwent a 14 hour surgery where they removed her kidney and reconstruction of Iyra's bladder. Iyra had a tough start like all kids in the course of her treatment. She had fevers every cycle (but skipped when she was getting radiation). In addition to the fevers, she was tested positive for C-diff and other unknown causes for fever for which we had to stay in-patient for weeks. Iyra had a total of 14 cycles of chemotherapy in total along with 24 radiotherapy treatments.  Iyra's mom Divya says “The word CANCER is a scary one, and when it's pediatric cancer it gets 100 folds harder. Iyra was too young to advocate for herself. EVERYTHING was so hard for her to understand. She only knew that we went to the hospital and stayed there 2 nights every 21 days. In between those 21 days we went in for many fevers and together, this whole journey was a roller coaster.” Iyra finished her treatments in October 2022.

One of Iyra's and her mom's biggest dreams was to go back to their home country of India and visit Iyra's great grandmother. This past February Iyra and her mom Divya's dream came true, Iyra traveled to INDIA for the very first time to meet her great grandmother and other family members. Iyra said “To see her great grandmother was her dream come true for both my daughter and my grandmother this will FOREVER be a BIG part of her life, I am so so so glad she got to visit her in February this year. Sadly, we lost her this past week.” You really don't know what tomorrow will bring, these are the special moments that keep Campaign One At A Time pushing to make dreams come true for so many other kids like Iyra and their families.

Iyra might be done with her treatments but her journey is far from over. Due to chemotherapy and radiation side effects Iyra had to go through and has successfully finished physical therapy twice a week for nephropathy after her treatments were finished and has to continually go in for routine scans and checkups with her oncologist, but overall Iyra is a thriving 5 year old. Her mom Divya said that “Iyra just had her 9 months scan and is grateful they were clean and Iyra is still in remission.”

If you would like to follow Iyra's journey you can follow her on Instagram @divya_tambre

Written By Tracy Croxen