The Alves Family

My friend and former co-worker of 16 years at Towne Square Dental, Maria, and her family are in need of some help. Maria's husband, Vinny, has been in and out of the hospital the past few weeks. At first he was diagnosed with septic pneumonia and sent home after a few days. He then went back into the hospital days later, and this time they found the cause of the bacterial infection to be legionella. He had to stay several more days to be treated with IV antiobiotics. This bacterial infection often affects people whose immune systems are down. The doctor's also found some swollen lymph nodes that required some more testing. Finally, the family was informed that Vinny has Stage III Hodgkin's lymphoma. While the outlook for this illness looks good with an 80% 5 year survival rate, this is going to take a toll on the family. Vinny had been laid off for a while only to have started working again two weeks prior to all of this happening. He does not have any benefits coming from the job, and he is unable to work now. Maria is trying to maintain her hours as a dental assistant at an endodontic office. Felicia, their daughter, has been helping out as well while trying to maintain her summer hours at the bank. She will be returning to a full-time school load in the fall. This GoFundMe was started to aid in the day to day bills of the household. If you'd like to help in other ways such as gift cards for the family, please contact me.