Support For Juan Galarza

My name is Claudia and I’m making this go fund me for my father Juan Galarza. My father was diagnosed with Lung cancer Oct 2018. It started with a cough and with an incidental finding. His doctor told him he had a large mass in his lower left lung and a biopsy needed to be done. After his biopsy it was confirmed to be cancer. With reassurance of his oncologist, we can remove his lower left lobe where the cancer was he would be ok. Surgery day came and while oncologist was in surgery, he came out and stated he might have to take out his entire left lung because the mass had grown. My mother told him to do everything he could to make sure he was ok. As the oncologist went back in he was able to remove the mass with out having to removed his entire left lung. As we desperately awaited his pathology results from surgery my father started his journey with chemotherapy and radiation. Pathology confirmed it was Lung cancer stage 3B and it was also in his lymph nodes. Keeping our faith we supported him through all of this. 4 Chemos and 30 radiation therapies later my father was doing well. Side effects were definitely in affect but he stayed strong. He kept up with his follow ups and started his process to get his chemotherapy pills to help him stabilize his cancer. As everyone knows that is a long process to get approved and sent. In October 2019 my father went for a prostate biopsy as the doctor wanted to make sure everything was fine due to an enlarged prostate. Thankfully his prostate biopsy came back benign. But that’s when everything started to decline for my father. My father started to feel weak, have excessive headaches, and dizziness. He had multiple occurrences where he fainted but refuse to go to the hospital. After his last episode with him hitting his head my mother rushed him to the ER. While there they ran a bunch a test and told him that he had a brain bleed that could’ve been from his fall. He remains in the hospital for three weeks before the doctors thought he was fine to be released. He had an infection in his right lung that was treated with steroids and antibiotics. To help in walk again he was discharged from the hospital and sent to a rehabilitation facility. While there he started to have seizure like activity but no test we ran. My brother and mother took him back to the ER 3 days later. My father was again admitted and more test were ran. He was confirmed to have had seizures and his speech and mobility declined. Seizure medication was started. On November 11/14/19 my father was intubated and sedated to help get his seizures under control. He was then transferred to another hospital because the weekend was approaching and they can monitor him closer in a Neuro ICU. He had continuous EEG monitoring and remained on his anti-seizure medicine. On 11/15/19 my father had a MRI of the brain and it confirmed that it had metastasized. A few days later the doctors decided to slowly remove him from sedation to help him wake up. He did not respond well to this and didn’t come out from sedation. As he remained on life support the doctors had an important question to ask us. We had to make a very difficult choice. He asked us if we wanted to keep my father on life support or remove everything to see if he could breath on his own. With hopes that he would wake up from all of this we kept him on a few more days. On 11/23/19 at 1:30pm we removed him off life support in hopes that he would breath on his own. And he did! He was breathing as best he could with a bit of snoring thrown in. And boy was my father a loud snorer!(he always was). Hospice advised us that he was breathing well on his own and we will be able to start the transfer to the hospice tranquility facility and that the ambulance would come for him at 7:30pm. At 3:55pm my father gave his last breath. He fought as hard as he could and as long as he could. That afternoon heaven gained another angel. He was my best friend and we all lost a huge part of our hearts that day. I am asking for donations for his funeral and medical costs. Anything helps and we are forever grateful for all of you. Thank you and God Bless.