Help Reclaim Pedro’s Health and Future: Stem Cell Transplant

Hello my name is Pedro and I am 23 years old, I was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), Acute deep vein thrombosis (DVT) of calf muscle vein of right lower extremity, and Cerebral hemorrhage, nontraumatic on midnight of March 18 2024. I was alone when I got diagnosed and I was scared. It didn’t feel real honestly hearing that I had cancer. I felt like it took my life away and I felt lost. I got restricted from a lot of things that I loved to do and that made me well me. It feels like cancer took everything away from me and I lost myself. I feel like I’m way behind in life and I am dependable instead of being independent. I feel embarrassed asking for help as a 23 year old male where I should be able to do anything myself. I have a great support system, but it doesn’t change the fact that nobody can take this cancer away and I could live my normal life again. I used to be really active and make the room bright with my character. Now I feel like everyone has to worry about my health and about how I’m doing mentally. I loved my life I loved being independent and I loved making my own decisions, but I got robbed. I feel like I’m to blame for getting sick and losing myself and losing people I love and care about. I can’t believe I lost something that felt like it was going to be forever and I feel like cancer played a big role because it made me not being able to be myself which caused me to lose my dignity as a man. I couldn’t work for my own money, I couldn’t workout due to being fatigued and nauseous, I couldn’t be out without feeling judged, I felt overwhelmed with people giving me hope, I felt useless and like I had nothing going for myself. Cancer really took my life that I loved and I hate it. I felt like I finally was on the right path on life, but it took a big turn and now I have to sit here and accept it.Before everything went downhill for me let me tell you about who I was. I was a person that really loved to be active and make people laugh with my humor. My main passion was playing fútbol (soccer) and I even had to chance to play around the world. I played at California, Finland, Sweden, and Costa Rica! I loved playing fútbol so much and I at least went outside to kick the ball once a day either in the yard or go to a field. I would also go train with a couple of guys and we would end things off with playing a scrimmage or just fun games. Going out to play at different states or country’s and meeting new people and playing felt amazing it felt like I was living the dream. Fútbol was a huge part of my life I have played for as long as I lived as I could think of. Fútbol was my home, my therapy, my everything so I put in all my time and dedication. I was so passionate and I had a lot of people give me compliments. I loved fútbol with my whole heart and I couldn’t live without it. I loved going out to trails to enjoy nature and run. I loved making plans with my friends to either go out to eat or go out to do an activity. I enjoyed playing video games with my friends and I would also stream to people and they would enjoy watching. I always pushed with optimism day by day while things got hard and put a smile on my face to be able to make people around me have the same energy. I loved doing different colors with my hair and different hairstyles as well, I love my hair. I also loved going to the gym to stay fit. Being nice to people even when they are mean because you don’t know what they are going through is the kind of person I am. I loved being adventurous and trying new things and that is why I also traveled alone, like going to Mexico to visit family. I would consider myself a friendly person and I would mostly love being with family. I also had a job with stable income. Before I got diagnosed I had the symptoms of really bad headaches, bruised easily, bled a lot, I had lymphnotes (bumps) on my neck, and rashes on my arms and legs. Being concerned with my health I went to the hospital at late midnight and when I got diagnosed I was alone, scared and had nobody to tell. Next morning I told everyone what happened, it was devastating. I had a bone marrow biopsy to confirm I had cancer, then I got transferred to rush university hospital. I stayed in the hospital for three months going through intense chemo therapy. Throughout those three months I was covered a little bit from my insurance. During that I was restricted from a lot of things and in those three months of staying in the hospital all I did was feel trapped and I was getting depressed. I couldn’t play fútbol anymore and it felt like I lost myself. Fútbol was a way I expressed my emotions out and I put my blood, sweat, and tears out on the field. Where a part of myself got ripped apart. I couldn’t be active and I couldn’t even go to the gym to workout. Fútbol was my dream, but it faded when I got diagnosed. I had a good support system, but just going through it was terrible. Everyday I felt nauseous, I took pills for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I was always getting getting blood taken from my veins to send to labs to see how my body was doing with the chemo. I started losing my hair at some point just shaving it off which was the last thing I wanted. Later on my insurance got cut off and I wasn’t getting income to pay important bills. Slowly I started losing myself and went into the deepest depression of my life. I was not able to workout and I started losing my physique that I worked on. I lost myself, lost everything I loved or so I thought, but my faith with god stayed strong. After I left the hospital, after 3 months did not mean I was able to return to my normal life because I still had to continue going to the hospital to get chemo 4 times a week. I was getting chemo and going through the battle for 10 months. I got blood clots from not getting up from the bed to walk around and when I tried to workout I would throw up and spit out blood. When I got a fever it would be the worst and I would have to go to the emergency room. Every time I tried to eat food I would throw up. I got so depressed that I cut off everybody I talked to. I made everyone around me suffer and cry. I did not want to continue living anymore due to everything I was going through. When I finally made it to the maintenance phase I was slowly starting to feel better and everything was coming back slowly and I got back to getting my job back and getting back in shape slowly, I was finally able to feel “normal” and I was finally playing soccer once I found a team which only lasted a month. Anyways after 6 months of being in the maintenance phase I sadly relapsed and now I’m back to square one. Unfortunately due to that I had to leave my job again which meant I didn’t have a steady income to pay bills and debt. This time was different though, my doctors mentioned that I could get a stem cell transplant and my chances of living a more steady normal lifestyle. This gave me a lot of hope to feeling like I could be the me I once was. I needed to do the stem cell transplant, but my insurance is only able to cover around half of the payment. I felt weak asking for help, but everyone around me is telling me that asking for help doesn’t make me weak and that I already did the hard part of being strong and fighting cancer. I really closed myself off from family even when they were the first to reach out, it even became hard for me to maintain the best relationships around me. On family game nights I would stay up and try to enjoy the moments but the pain caused from my sickness would often have me going down a deep hole. Most of my days were spent with me neglecting myself with ill thoughts and ill behavior, I stopped taking my medication, I felt stuck and didn’t know what to do. When I went out in public I often felt judged and insecure about what other people thought of me it made me hate going out regardless of who I was with or where I was. It led to me isolating myself in my dark room where I thought I was always alone. I completely gave up and had often thought that life just wasn’t for me. It tore the hearts of everyone around me that truly loves me. Until now my family fought for me, they took a piece of my battle and it made me want to fight for myself. I started searching into stem cell transplants, a procedure that could possible correct the making of my white blood cells. While going through my battle with cancer I did not feel comfortable with taking pictures of myself. I also had to get pic lines on my chest and in my arm once the one on my chest got infected. Now I have a port in my chest. I don’t want to go back to square one and go through months of heavy chemo and relive that made me somebody I never want to be or go through again.