William Gerrettie Sr. Memorial Fund
Donation protected
My name is Danielle, William was my father. I say was, because unfortunately he lost his battle with cancer on 8/18/2016 of this year. I suppose if I'm asking random strangers for help, I should really start at the beginning.
The Gerrettie family has kind of had a tough year. In January of 2015, I noticed that I was having some severe pains in my abdomen and just in general was not feeling good. My hair started to fall out, I started bruising everywhere and was in constant pain. I went into see my gynecologist, who after several tests sent me to see a gynecological oncologist. I was diagnosed with several noncancerous fibroids ranging in size from a lemon to a grapefruit and one large tumor, leiomyosarcoma....cancer. My father spent all of his time working and running me to see doctors and get treatment. I am still battling health issues. The noncancerous fibroids are so large we need to shrink them to remove them safely and they are so large they are causing extreme anemia. I have to go to the doctor and get a transfusion once a month.
If this wasn't enough to go through on July 10th 2016, my dad came home from the grocery store and just seemed "off". I thought maybe it was dehydration, made him drink some water, fed him a good supper and he seemed fine. For the next 4 weeks my father would seem himself one minute and then make no sense the next. I begged him to go to the doctor and the earliest he could be seen was 8/16/2016. His episodes became more and more frequent, eventually resulting in hallucinations, him not knowing who I was and erratic behavior. I took care of him day in and day out and prayed that it was something wrong with his medications and once he was seen by his doctor everything would be ok.
On the morning on 8/8/2016 my father woke up, vomiting and dizzy. He was going in and out of making any sense and I finally got his to agree to go to the emergency room. After 12 hours the doctors came in and told me, your father has brain cancer, we need to transfer him and he needs to see a neurosurgeon immediately.
Three days later we were told that my father had a tumor in his right lung taking up over 95% of his lung, a tumor the size of a baseball on his adrenal gland, 47 tumors in his brain and one on his brain stem. There was no chance of him getting better, we lost him a week later.
Just when we thought our family could not take any more tragedy my mother had to be rushed to the hospital. She had dropped to 88 pounds, her oxygen blood levels were 37% and she was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure and placed on full time oxygen.
Between the hospital bills, living expenses, and my father’s cremation and memorial expenses, all of the savings we had has been spent and we are still drowning in debt from the hospital bills. My father had no life insurance, any savings we all had is gone. The mortgage on this house is not paid, and we will have nowhere to go in the next month. We need help, any help we can get, so that I can get my mother into a new place, where I can continue to take care of her. If you can find it in your heart to help in any way, we would appreciate it more then you know. Right now we are hoping for the kindness of strangers and a chance for our luck to turn around. Please if you can, give and share this to all your social media. If you can't give, please share to all your social media. Any help could make a huge difference.
The Gerrettie family has kind of had a tough year. In January of 2015, I noticed that I was having some severe pains in my abdomen and just in general was not feeling good. My hair started to fall out, I started bruising everywhere and was in constant pain. I went into see my gynecologist, who after several tests sent me to see a gynecological oncologist. I was diagnosed with several noncancerous fibroids ranging in size from a lemon to a grapefruit and one large tumor, leiomyosarcoma....cancer. My father spent all of his time working and running me to see doctors and get treatment. I am still battling health issues. The noncancerous fibroids are so large we need to shrink them to remove them safely and they are so large they are causing extreme anemia. I have to go to the doctor and get a transfusion once a month.
If this wasn't enough to go through on July 10th 2016, my dad came home from the grocery store and just seemed "off". I thought maybe it was dehydration, made him drink some water, fed him a good supper and he seemed fine. For the next 4 weeks my father would seem himself one minute and then make no sense the next. I begged him to go to the doctor and the earliest he could be seen was 8/16/2016. His episodes became more and more frequent, eventually resulting in hallucinations, him not knowing who I was and erratic behavior. I took care of him day in and day out and prayed that it was something wrong with his medications and once he was seen by his doctor everything would be ok.
On the morning on 8/8/2016 my father woke up, vomiting and dizzy. He was going in and out of making any sense and I finally got his to agree to go to the emergency room. After 12 hours the doctors came in and told me, your father has brain cancer, we need to transfer him and he needs to see a neurosurgeon immediately.
Three days later we were told that my father had a tumor in his right lung taking up over 95% of his lung, a tumor the size of a baseball on his adrenal gland, 47 tumors in his brain and one on his brain stem. There was no chance of him getting better, we lost him a week later.
Just when we thought our family could not take any more tragedy my mother had to be rushed to the hospital. She had dropped to 88 pounds, her oxygen blood levels were 37% and she was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure and placed on full time oxygen.
Between the hospital bills, living expenses, and my father’s cremation and memorial expenses, all of the savings we had has been spent and we are still drowning in debt from the hospital bills. My father had no life insurance, any savings we all had is gone. The mortgage on this house is not paid, and we will have nowhere to go in the next month. We need help, any help we can get, so that I can get my mother into a new place, where I can continue to take care of her. If you can find it in your heart to help in any way, we would appreciate it more then you know. Right now we are hoping for the kindness of strangers and a chance for our luck to turn around. Please if you can, give and share this to all your social media. If you can't give, please share to all your social media. Any help could make a huge difference.
Organizer
Danielle Agajan
Organizer
Nekoosa, WI