Spain Frank Cuesta travels to Murcia to surprise Martín, an eight-year-old boy sick with terminal cancer: "He was with him as if he were one of the family"

A few weeks ago the ‘influencer’ Ceciarmy published a tweet asking Frank Cuesta if there was any way that Martín could see him. It was a dream for him, who at the age of eight suffers from terminal cancer. And it was fulfilled yesterday. The television adventurer caught a plane from Thailand, spent two hours talking with Martín in the living room of his house, and even invited him to visit him in Thailand. “He was with Martín as if he were one of the family. We were a little nervous, but he lay down on the sofa with Martín as if he were his brother or his cousin. They held hands and my son kissed him and took off his cap,” remembers Isabel Muelas, Martin’s mother.

The little boy has a diffuse midline glioma with the H3 QM27 mutation, one of the worst brain tumors in children. It is a cancer with a survival rate of 1% and an average life expectancy of 12 months.

His mother says that it came from the ‘influencer’ himself to post that message on his networks encouraging Frank Cuesta to visit Martín because he knew that he loves animals and watches their videos on YouTube. “The same day, Frank sent Martín a personalized video from Thailand, showing him different animals, and he told us that he would come to see him on the 30th. And so he did,” he says. For his family, Frank Cuesta’s visit was like a breath of fresh air. “Martín is super turned off and yesterday he was talking to him for two hours. He showed him his stickers and he showed him his animals. We also needed to see him like this,” he recalls.

Although the family had known about the adventurer’s visit for weeks, until Monday they did not tell Martín anything “for not generating anxiety,” says Isabel. The little boy, who had been excited about the visit for hours, hoped that Frank Cuesta would take home the animals with which he lives in Thailand. “He watches his videos on YouTube and he imagined that he was going to come with the otter, the chinchilla and all his bugs, and when he saw him without anything he said: you haven’t brought me the chinchillas”, he recalls smiling .

After spending a couple of hours with Martín, Isabel says that she herself had a conversation with Frank Cuesta in which the television adventurer insisted that she try to take Martín home in Thailand, “but right now it’s a utopia for how it is Martin,” he admits. Cuesta insisted that “things have to be done, you don’t have to think about them” because “it’s the child’s passion.” “He wanted to tell me that we should take advantage of the moment,” she recalls, but the reality is that Martín’s medical situation has worsened in the last week.

Although the medical tests carried out on him in April showed a decrease in the brain tumor he suffers from, in the last week Martín has worsened and is waiting for a new MRI to clarify the reason for these new symptoms. There are several possibilities, it could be that the tumor has entered a phase of progression, in which case the progression of the disease is very rapid, or that the tumor has caused a cerebral edema that causes these symptoms. “He is very regular. He has stopped moving his right hand and is choking, choking on his own saliva. He is not the Martin of a week ago,” says his mother.

In the event that the cancer was progressing, the family’s idea, with the support of their oncologist, is to look for a “desperate” clinical trial anywhere in Spain, even if it is focused on investigating other types of brain tumors. “If it is progressing, we are talking about a life expectancy of two or three months,” says Isabel. In addition, her oncologist is evaluating the possibility of resuming radiotherapy.

With the aim of raising funds for Martín’s treatment -which costs 10,300 euros- and to help finance a clinical study on DIPG in Spain, on June 4 the family has organized a charity event in Molina del Segura. The clinical study, whose implementation has already begun, could be ready by January 2024, but that date for Martín “is a lifetime”, so they want to try to bring it forward as much as possible. “If the government wanted to open the studio instead of driving us parents crazy, my son would still have a chance to live,” she says.

“The objective is to raise money for research, to see how far we can go with my son and with any other child, because I don’t know if Martín will do anything,” he says.

It’s been months since the family opened a change.org to ask the Ministry of Science and Innovation for more investment in I D i to be able to investigate cancers like their son’s. “It is very unfair. You have to be lucky to die: that you get a cancer in which there are studies and treatments. If you get a cancer like my son’s, you already have a death sentence. And all cancers deserve, like minimum, to be able to fight a battle”, he asserts, to later insist that “all cancers deserve studies at the same level”.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project