A Weslaco man is raising awareness after losing his wife to a rare brain disease.

Steve Ortiz is keeping the memory of his late wife, Liliana Zapata, alive by sharing her story to encourage others to keep fighting.

"For some reason it could've picked me, it could've picked you, it could've picked anybody. Unfortunately, it picked her," Ortiz said.

It started with occasional fainting.

"Very first symptoms were lightheadedness," Ortiz said. "And that was at first dismissed as something, oh, stress related."

And then symptoms became more serious.

"She started sweating less and less, which was kind of unusual," Ortiz said.

In 2019, Zapata was about to turn 50. She was doing what she loved, teaching middle school art in Weslaco.

At first, doctors dismissed her symptoms as stress from wo

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