Aferdita's Medical Fund

This is my mom – Aferdita. She is 64 years old. She was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer. It has broken our hearts. My parents came to this county five years ago as visitors. They have been with us ever since.

They decided to stay and help my family out, particularly taking care of my children. My husband and I work full-time and needed help with our children. For the past five years my parents have taken my children to school and picked them up every day. They have made 3 meals a day for them, helped them with homework, taken them to sport games, played with them, and most of all, have loved them.

I have always thought my parents were healthy, as they seemed to be healthy. As visitors they don’t have health insurance so when they were sick, doctor visits were really expensive. When my mother started having really bad pain near her colon back in March, I took her to the emergency room. The doctors told us that she needed a CT Scan and so we did. They had seen a large mass near her colon and referred her to having a colonoscopy done to rule out cancer. Unfortunately, right after her colonoscopy the doctor came out and told us it was cancer. I have never in my life felt so much pain in my heart.

A surgery date was set to remove the tumour that had grown – during surgery it was found that her cancer had spread to the abdomen and is impossible to remove. Her cancer is “incurable” as her surgeon stated.

Three weeks later, today, when we hoped that she would be better, she is only getting worse. Her hospital bills have been coming in and of course since she is not a resident of Canada, everything is doubled. My parents have tried to apply for permanent residency in the past, however, due to the immigration laws and regulations they were not able to. My mother and father are now traveling back to their home country of Albania, to consider chemotherapy and radiation.

Her hospital bill so far is $30,000, not including the surgery or anaesthesiology bills. As many of you know, the hospital wants a full payment on a certain date. I am trying to fight for a payment plan, however, things are not going in the way that I had hoped. And as my mom has not worked in the last 5 years she has almost nothing to pay the hospital bills. We have no idea how much the chemotherapy and radiation will cost in Albania.

And this is why I am here, sharing my mothers’ story with you all and asking for your help with our medical bills. Any amount of donation would help and be greatly appreciated. I thank you, for taking time out of your day to read my mothers’ story. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

 Sincerely,

 Erisa