LD Pistal & Layla

When Layla was just 2 years-old, she began complaining about headaches and losing her ability to walk. Her mother had just recently moved the family from Virginia to California while Layla's dad, a helicopter pilot in the US Navy, was deployed to the Middle East. Their lives were turned upside-down when Layla was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor on her brainstem. Since her diagnosis, Layla has undergone 13 brain surgeries, has had a shunt implanted to move fluid from her brain to her body while circumventing the tumor, and has participated in a chemotherapy clinical trial. Each and every one of these treatments has been accompanied by a variety of life-threatening complications, including brain bleeds, brain swelling, brain collapses, and shunt malfunctions. Layla is monitored regularly and her treatment plan changes to best manage her condition and its accompanying symptoms. Layla's family and doctors continue to seek out experimental trials that will stabilize or shrink Layla's tumor in the hopes that she can continue to grow and live with it until better and more effective treatments are available.

Coming soon