To anyone who knows Claudio this GoFundMe is being created in an effort to help him and his mother, who Claudio lives with and for many years, has helped take care of financially since his father passed over a decade ago.

Many of you may have worked with Claudio at Best Buy, or known him through someone who did. For two decades since I met him, Claudio has diligently worked in retail, helping people in mobile cell phones. Many of you may remember Claudio as being funny, intelligent, helpful, or even just a good social person.

Last year, Claudio fell ill and was subsequently diagnosed with an extremely rare auto-immune disorder. He went from working full time for T-Mobile to being almost completely incapable of working. This started with numerous visits to doctors and the ER over and over. Eventually once his diagnosis was discovered he began a course of chemotherapy, among many other medical treatments. This left Claudio extremely weak, and in need of further medical treatments.

It was in the height of his medical issues that hurricane Ian hit Fort Meyers, near where Claudio and his mother live in Cape Coral. Claudio spent that hurricane and the subsequent Nicole in the hospital. Meanwhile his mom, cut off from him, had to handle their home's roof leaking and caving in, and their air conditioner failing. Also meanwhile, Claudio had to fight to get the disability insurnace he had been paying into with Sprint and T-Mobile for almost a decade, to help him with his basic life expenses, not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical treatments.

Since that time, Claudio has been in and out of critical care, even experiencing a coma due to a complication with a surgery. During this time, T-Mobile decided, after not being able to reach him (due to coma) to terminate his employment and hence, his disability insurance and his healthcare coverage.

Claudio is fighting to get help with state health coverage and disability but this process is a long one. The Urbaez's home is still awaiting an insurance claim for a damaged roof, and now, completely non-functional air conditioning system, leaving his mom stuck in the Florida weather while he struggles for his life and livelihood in the hospital system, which overall has truly been letting him down.

I am pleased to say that recently, Claudio's healthcare journey is stabilized, with him working to do physical therapy and other medical treatments to try to get some sense of stability. But Claudio's journey and struggles are far, far from over.

If there was ever a reason for a Go Fund Me campaign to be created and sent out to people for a person, this is truly a worthy cause. If you know Claudio, or know anyone who knew him, or that is in a position to help, no matter how big or small, please pass this campaign on via any social media outlets or networking options you have.

Though we cannot help address the extensive medical bills Claudio will be facing, we can potentially help him and his mother to be able to keep their home, and to have an environment that isn't dangerous to their health. Please pass this on to anyone who you think may be willing to help. A donation of $1 among a thousand people would still be so critically helpful in this situation.

*edit 5/2/23*

Thank you SO much to everyone who has donated. I am raising the goal from $1000 to $2500, because we have raised almost the entire $1000 initially set in the first day! Which shows me just how much others appreciate and care about Claudio. With my very poor ability to utilize social media this is amazing. Please share this fundraiser with anyone you may think would care. We truly appreciate all of your help beyond what words can say. As many of you can imagine, Claudio has been experiencing a trial like few of us can even comprehend, and just today told me that this acknowledgement (peoples response to the GoFundMe) from friends, past colleagues, family etc. has truly touched him. The value that we as friends or friends of friends are giving Claudio goes beyond monetary. To bring joy and love to this man, who has had every single day of his last year be not only bad but often terrible, is beyond valuable.

Thank you all so much and let's see if we can continue to raise some money to help him and his mother with lifesaving funds to help him get through this terrible time.