Meet Blanca

Blanca was born on October 3rd, 1995 in Madrid, though she lived her whole life in Pozuelo de Alarcón. She was Miguel Angel and Rosa’s second daughter, and Begoña’s little sister, forming a tight knit family. 

She attended school at Liceo Sorolla until she was accepted to the Business Management program at Comillas University, which afforded her the opportunity to study two years in Northeastern University in Boston. Due to her brilliance as a student, she was awarded with honorable distinction and a scholarship from the Community of Madrid during her Baccalaureate studies.

Her biggest passion was music. Blanca took vocational training in viola at the Majadahonda Conservatory and was a member of Madrid’s Metropolitan Orchestra. She got the opportunity to dedicate her professional life to what she liked the most, and while still a student, Blanca completed an internship at Gelfand, Rennet & Feldman in New York City, focusing on copyright management. After graduating university, she enrolled in the Musical Industry and Sound Studies Master’s Degree at Carlos III University and continued her professional career at Sony Music in Madrid.

At the young age of 22, Blanca started showing the first symptoms of her illness. What first showed signs of being a Myelitis (an inflammation of the spinal cord), turned out to be a Diffuse Anaplastic Astrocytoma of the spinal cord. After a very complicated surgery that severely impacted her mobility and sensitivity, Blanca and her family had to make a crucial decision regarding treatment. The type of cancer and its location made traditional radiotherapy very dangerous, with a significant risk of complete loss of mobility.

The best possible treatment we found at the time was Proton Beam Therapy, which unfortunately did not exist in Spain, but could be found in other European countries and the United States. For being one of the world leaders in this technology, we sought the Proton Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, the city where Blanca had lived and developed a lot of affection. Being a very expensive treatment, Blanca and her sister started a crowdfunding campaign to help their parents, which turned out to be an overwhelming success.

Thanks to all the cycles of proton therapy, Blanca was able to improve her mobility significantly and enjoy a stable standard of living during the first year of her illness. However, the aggressiveness of the cancer manifested itself as a cerebral Glioblastoma. She underwent surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. From that moment forward her standard of living worsened progressively, although she never lost hope or her fighting spirit, and she continued to strive every day to give it her all.

Although she suffered a terrible illness, Blanca was always surrounded by family, her boyfriend and her unconditional friends until the very end. 

Below is the photo gallery we chose to share with you so you can get to know Blanca: