“The strongest man in the world” they called him Regis Feitosa Mota your friends and family. At the age of 52, the Brazilian economist not only battled a serious illness, but in less than five years he also saw his three children die because he had inherited the disease from which he suffered: Li-Fraumeni syndrome, This leads to the rapid appearance of tumors in various organs.
Despite the strong impact that the deaths of his three children, ages 10, 22 and 25, had on Feitosa, he used the final moments of his life to pay tribute to them and warn other families about this rare disease he was suffering from died August 13, 2023.
From 2018 to 2022, Regis Feitosa Mota lost his three children due to a syndrome they inherited. Photo: @regisfeitosamota/Instagram
What illness did Régis Feitosa and his children have?
The Feitosas' battle with their strange illness began in 2009, when Régis' eldest daughter, Anna Carolina, 12 years old at the time, was diagnosed acute lymphocytic leukemia, is considered the most common type of cancer in children. The grueling three years the youngest spent undergoing chemotherapy motivated her to want to help others and so she decided to study medicine.
In 2016, family complications arose again when Régis Feitosa discovered that he was suffering from the same cancer as his eldest daughter. He soon learned of the existence of osteosarcoma in his body, a cancer that developed in the bone.
Regis' children: Beatriz (10) died in 2018, Pedro (22) in 2020 and Ana (25) in 2022. Photo: @regisfeitosamota/Instagram
This series of coincidences motivated Régis to undergo a genetic test, which revealed that he suffered from Li-Fraumeni syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that increases the risk of developing cancer.
Already with a clear diagnosis, things became complicated in 2017 when Beatriz, the youngest of the Régis, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Despite attempts to save her life through a bone marrow transplant, the 10-year-old girl died on June 24, 2018.
Since then, the misfortunes for the family did not stop: on November 30, 2020, Pedro Feitosa, who suffered from brain cancer, died, and on November 19, 2022, Anna Carolina, who managed to realize her dream of becoming a doctor before her death, died. from a brain tumor.
Régis Feitosa Mota died on August 13, 2023. Photo: @regisfeitosamota/Instagram
The arduous struggle of Régis Feitosa
He Li-Fraumeni syndrome He didn't give Régis Feitosa any peace. Just two months after the death of his daughter Anna Carolina, he discovered that his battle with leukemia was also joined by multiple myeloma, which affected his left eye.
In one of the last interviews he was able to give, Régis revealed that his children never blamed him for their shared illness. “They said I was just as much a victim as they were,” he told BBC Brazil.
Régis quickly became known for his work promoting and visualizing Li-Fraumen syndrome through his Instagram profile to his more than 800,000 followers. “I started using networks to communicate with friends and family to get them to follow us, but that ended up expanding a lot. Today I receive many messages from people who say that they have been positively influenced by our story,” he explained.
Unfortunately, after months of intensive chemotherapy, Régis Feitosa died on August 13, 2023, the day Father's Day was celebrated in Brazil.
“Our warrior went to his children exactly on Father's Day. May God rest his soul, brother! We love you very much!” said his brother Rogério Feitosa Mota.