
Help Papa Quang Fight Cancer
As some of you know, I flew back home on September 26th to take care of my dad. What started as a broken arm; turned into a nightmare come to life.
Yesterday, my dad was officially diagnosed with cancer. He has stage 4 metastatic renal cell carcinoma. We suspected as much with all the tumors they found when the x-rays and myriad of scans were done when he first broke his arm. He begins immunotherapy soon in an attempt to prolong his life by a couple of years, but there is only a chance of 5-10% of remission.
I want to share some backstory about my amazing papa:
He fled a war-torn Vietnam with his mother and 6 siblings in 1980 for a chance at a better life. They landed in Albuquerque, NM, staying for a bit before his family moved on to Los Angeles, CA. My dad stayed back and continued working to send money to his mom and siblings. This continued for a while before his friend convinced him to move to Houston, TX to find more work.
My dad moved to Houston and eventually met my mom. They fell in love, got married, and had their first child, Jon. Then they had me a couple of years later.
Fast forward to the present: my parents have been married for 36 years and live on their own; they are empty nesters now. My dad is currently on FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) which is only 3 months of unpaid leave and ends at the start of December. He is the breadwinner and with this new diagnosis and treatments to come, he will not be able to return to work for the foreseeable future. I left my job working with my husband in Canada to come here and help take care of my dad so my mom could continue working, just to be able to cover their mortgage. But now with my father's official cancer diagnosis, we are finding it difficult to see how they will continue to afford their living expenses on top of medical bills.
My dad is a proud man and a fighter. How he has lived his life up to this moment is a testament to those two things. It breaks my heart to come face to face with this new reality. My family is hurting right now and I humbly ask for all the prayers and well wishes you can send our way as my dad starts his journey of fighting this cancer.
As you can imagine, cancer therapy is very expensive. If you can donate to help lighten the load on my parents as they navigate their way through this, we would all be forever grateful. I don’t want my parents’ emotional and physical burdens to be compounded by financial concerns. Any amount will help and be deeply appreciated.
I am still processing this myself and I hope I can continue to be a help to my family as we go through this together. Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this.