Skip To Content
asis FeedonBuzzFeed Homepage
Sign In
Search BuzzFeed

    This Woman Is Fighting For Her Life One Beautiful Yoga Pose At A Time

    Briana Donis has an extremely rare and deadly form of anemia. But that hasn't stopped her from pulling yoga poses like a champ.

    Julie Gerstein
    by Julie Gerstein

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Meet Briana. She's a 19-year-old from Houston, Texas, who has a rare and deadly disease called aplastic anemia.

    Courtesy Briana Donis

    She was diagnosed with the disease at 18, after noticing that she was bruising a lot, and becoming tired rather easily.

    Though she's looking super cute and #HospitalGlam here, aplastic anemia is a very serious disease that affects only 1 or 2 in a million people.

    Ieko Media - Film Tv Photography Services / Via facebook.com

    Aplastic anemia impacts the body's red and white blood cells and the blood's platelets, and prevents the body's bone marrow stem cells from producing enough new blood cells. The only treatment for the condition is chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.

    In December, Briana received a bone marrow transplant, but it unfortunately failed.

    She's supposed to receive a second bone marrow transplant sometime this month. To keep her alive and healthy, her family and supporters are looking for donations of white blood cells.

    Facebook: BrivsAplasticAnemia

    They're also hoping to raise funds to help the family because Briana's mother — the primary breadwinner — had to take an unpaid leave of absence from her job while she's in treatment. Briana's condition will require that she live in isolation once she's out of the hospital, so the family now has two apartment rents to pay.

    And in the meantime, because her immune system is so compromised, she's living in isolation at the Texas Children's Medical Center.

    But that hasn't stopped her from following her passion: Yoga.

    Courtesy Briana Donis

    Despite the fact that she's in the hospital, Briana manages to post herself in a yoga pose every day on her Instagram.

    Here she is, in isolation, doing the Samakonasana pose.

    She does a pose a day, no matter the challenges.

    Many perfectly healthy people can't even do this (which is apparently called the Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana).

    This one, too (it's called Hanumanasana).

    "The progress is what keeps me engaged," she explained. "Keeping up with challenges and a yoga community in instagram holds me accountable and pushes me to keep trying everyday. There's never any failure, only success in a journey with yoga."

    And it helps keep her focused on the fight ahead.