Helping with the Gift of Life

Hello my name is Agueda most of you know me as America and I am the Oldest sister of Grace (Nene) Lopez. My sister was recently diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia and is undergoing Chemo at City of Hope in Duarte, CA. She is on her 3rd round of chemo and is getting closer to getting her bone marrow stem cell transplant. Our younger brother David is a match so we are very blessed and grateful that we were able to find her match so close to home and that quickly. All seems good and moving in the right direction but she has a variant with this cancer, which means it’s aggressive and can keep coming back no matter how much treatment she receives unless she does this stream cell transplant. The doctors needed to start chemo as soon as she was diagnosed which did not giver her the opportunity to even think about what it could do to her body. During her 2nd round of chemo she was told that she may not be able to have kids after her stem cell transplant and that if this was something she wanted she would need to see if she could preserve her eggs. How does a 20 year old know or decide this while she is in the middle of the hardest fight of her life if she wants the chance to have kids when you are just a kid yourself. Given this option she has about a week before her transplant once she is cancer free to preserve her eggs. She had the consult and it’s not impossible so she was ready to get this done so that we can move one step closer to her being cancer free. Then we get the news … well insurance doesn’t cover this and it’s about 6 thousand to get it done.

She has been blessed enough up to this point with insurance covering what she needs done. With her job and my moms job covering disability to help with the regular living essentials and expenses. We have not had to ask for help aside from blood and platelets donations and of course all the prayers we needed, but this is a new bump in the road that we do need help with. No one knows what life will bring or what cards your being dealt with but we could have never imagined that our baby sister would be diagnosed with Cancer. She is strong and has such a loving and supportive gathering behind her consisting of friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances, and even people we have never met. We would like to ask if you can please help us give our sister the opportunity to maybe one day have a kid of her own if it’s meant to be or if it’s even possible this is at least one way we can give her that chance. Any donation is helpful and appreciated.

Thank you - Agueda, Estefany, Audrey, Sammy, David, and of course Nene