This is my mother, Grace Carriaga-Barot. She is a 60 year-old Filipino, and has spent her life being a beloved wife, mother of one, and a devoted friend to many.

My mom has been fighting a rare, high-mortality blood/bone marrow cancer known as Multiple Myeloma.

She has managed to survive this long battle for almost half a decade, but her cancer is so uniquely aggressive that it is now on the verge of mutating into a form that is resistant to all treatments. She needs to kill it as soon as possible, within the next few months, before it becomes untreatable or her body becomes too weak to withstand the treatment.

As prescribed by her doctor, the best chance of killing the cancer and prolonging her life is through CAR-T-cell Therapy, a one-time, month-long procedure that modifies her T-cells to naturally attack her cancerous blood cells. The alternative is indefinitely continuing her immunotherapy that her remaining cancer is likely already resistant to, and is likely to be more expensive in the long run.

It can only be affordably done in Shanghai, which still costs upwards of PHP13,000,000.

PHP 9,000,000 is for the CAR-T medication, while the already discounted PHP 4,000,000 is for medical service fees, which encompass about a month of hospitalization for treatment and monitoring (1 week for harvesting, 3 weeks for infusion).

No medical coverage applies as it is international. No local health or government institutions are willing to partially finance this either. And there will be unforeseen costs. CAR T-cell Therapy, recommended by her top Filipino doctor, is tragically unavailable in the Philippines. Even just the test to detect the need for it required my mom to go to Taiwan first.

My mom is already a senior citizen and recently out of work. Both my retired dad and I are already contributing all we can to this CAR T-cell Therapy while her body can tolerate the treatment, but it is still not enough.

We are at the end of our savings.

For the past 4 years, we have already spent upwards of P12 million to get her blood treated by hematologists, orthopedists, and oncologists just so her cancer does not leave her out of breath from merely standing up due to being unable to carry oxygen, or snap her spine and neck from the cancer eating away her bones -- things that happened before she got diagnosed.

Since my mom was diagnosed in 2022, she has always been positive about her diagnosis. She has always stayed calm and rational, even when her doctors give her bad news, and even when her immunotherapy had left her so compromised that a regular cold could potentially kill her.

But for the first time, my mom feels truly hopeless. She was only positive because she thought by now the cancer would be gone. She did not plan to have the money to continue treatment for this long. And her country has failed to give her alternatives that will save her, both physically and financially.

She can't fight this alone anymore.

My mom wants to keep fighting Multiple Myeloma. She wants to prove it is not a death sentence, and can still be beaten. And in her fight, she wants it to be known that the Philippines must step up its healthcare system in order to make advanced treatments for diseases like Multiple Myeloma accessible and affordable for Filipinos.

Help her in her fight. She needs to raise the funds within the next few months to enable her CAR-T-Cell Therapy Treatment in Shanghai, as all her family’s available funds will fall very short of the required amount.

Any amount you can give will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much.