Help the Perez Family

Hello, my name is Prima and I'm one of 3 children to Dionicio Perez Jr. I am creating this GoFundMe to help with funeral costs as well as the partial financial burdens that have been placed upon me and my sister, Paris, since our father's unfortunate death. The last thing I wanted to do was come on here and create this GoFundMe. However, pride gets you nowhere and we're learning it's okay to admit when you need help.

Backstory:

For the last 2.5 years, my sister and I have been taking care of our father due to his number of health conditions and him no longer being able to work. It started with him getting diagnosed with congestive heart failure, then shortly after doctors found a diabetic ulcer in his foot. In attempts to heal this ulcer, he was required to keep pressure of the foot which resulted in him being wheelchair bound during this time. It was going to be a long road ahead with this recovery because of his existing health conditions making it difficult to heal the ulcer quickly. Because of this, we moved him in with us to care for him full time. His physical strength faded very quickly, which meant he required a lot more care than any of us were anticipating. We essentially became full-time care givers along with holding full-time jobs. From changing the dressings on his foot, taking him to and from doctor's appointments multiple times a month, grocery shopping, laundry, picking up medications, ensuring he takes his medications, bathing him and so much more.

Then, he was diagnosed with End-Stage Renal Disease. This required him to have dialysis treatments in center for 3.5 hours a day, 3 days a week. This was extremely hard to do with me working full-time and him not being able to drive, so I had to cut my hours at work to part time so I can focus more on getting him to doctor's appointments as well as to the dialysis center.

Despite all efforts to try and heal his foot, the only option moving forward to help him build a better quality of life was to perform a below the knee amputation. The ulcer wasn't getting any better even after a year of trying to heal it so if he ever wanted to walk again, they would need to amputate the foot and start physical therapy with a prosthesis. So, we did.

Even after all of this, his health and quality of life never seemed to improve. It only continued to get worse, which in turn created more physical and mental exhaustion for both me and my sister. All of us, including him, were just completely burnt out. It felt like this was just never ending. Caring for your disabled father for over 2 years, while trying to work full-time jobs at 28 and 27 years old is very, very hard. I never would have thought we would have to do all this at such an early stage in life.

He passed away Thursday, Februrary 22nd, 2024. As painful and as hard this whole journey with him has been, losing him was worse than everything we'd been through.

Unfortunately, his life insurance policy was terminated before his passing, so we were left with no money to handle all of this. If anyone would like to donate, we'd be extremely grateful. We just want to try to go back to living normal lives and give my dad the send off he deserve.

Thank you.