Dear Family and Friends,

First, we would like to thank you for visiting this GoFundMe page and taking the time to read our story, our ask, and our gratitude for our amazing support system.

As many of you know, In May 2024, Sergio was diagnosed with Stage 5 Chronic Kidney Disease, which means he is in kidney failure and relies on life saving dialysis treatments (3-hour sessions), 3-4 days a week until he receives a kidney transplant. As you can imagine, this was a hard realization to come to as we had just moved to Fresno, hours away from family support, and had our sweet girl Elena, who had just turned 2, to think of. We immediately started the process of getting Sergio on the kidney transplant list, which on average takes about 6 years to receive a kidney from, and started reaching out to family and friends to ask if they would like to get tested and see if they are a living donor match. Much to our surprise and delight, we received the incredible news that my dad, Sergio’s father in law, was a perfect match! In early 2025, we were in the final stages of testing and starting to plan out a transplant date when we were told that Sergio was no longer eligible to undergo a kidney transplant because the main artery in his heart was 90% blocked and he needed to undergo an immediate stent placement procedure. This news was a hard pill to swallow as this pushed out the possibility of a transplant for at least another year, but we obviously understood the severity of the situation and proceeded with the stent placement. 2025 was one of the hardest years we have experienced as a family. As a dialysis patient, Sergio is more prone to infections and shortly after his stent

placement he had 2 back to back infections in his foot which led to 2 toes being amputated, followed by a lung infection which required a chest tube placement to drain out the excess fluid in his lungs, a spinal infection which led to him losing his ability to walk or get up and move

around independently, and had a ruptured arteriovenous alformation (AVM), which led to internal bleeding in his stomach and required cauterization of the ruptured connection between his arteries and veins. In one year, Sergio had 5 hospitalizations and when Sergio lost his ability to walk due to his spinal infection, he had to go on disability as he was no longer able to perform his work responsibilities. While we are blessed to have good medical coverage, Sergio has yet to receive a disability payment and has been out of work since December 2025. This has put a strain on our financial situation and he is still undergoing weekly medical follow up appointments and dialysis treatment, giving us an unclear timeline of when he will be able to return to work. I have been blessed to have the ability to take time off work to be a full time caregiver for Sergio and our daughter Elena but the amount of days/hours allowed per year that I can take with pay is limited and not a long term solution for us nor is my income alone sufficient to carry the financial weight of keeping up with medical needs, transportation costs, care for Elena, and our monthly financial obligations that we maintained with 2 incomes.

We are grateful to our friends who have come together to put this GoFundMe page together for our family and the proceeds from this campaign will go towards our immediate financial needs and allow us to build back our savings to prepare for Sergio’s future kidney transplant which will require him to be out of work for 3-4 months for recovery, cover cost of transportation to and from UC Davis Transplant Center in Sacramento, hotel costs for myself and family to stay while

in Sacramento, and to help cover the loss of income for our kidney donor, my dad, who will have to be out of work without pay (they consider organ donation as an elective procedure, so he is ineligible for disability) for a least a month for recovery.

This is not an easy story for us to put out because we want to treat Sergio’s medical situation with as much privacy and care as possible but we have felt the immense love and support from our friends and family that we have placed our trust in them to handle this campaign with much respect and care that Sergio deserves during this incredibly vulnerable time for him and our family. We are doing this for our little family and most importantly our beautiful daughter Elena who has shown us how resilient she can be, for giving us light in times of darkness, giving us laughs to heal our tears, and reminding us why life is worth fighting for. We only wish to give her a life every child deserves and have her experience the joys of childhood with both of her parents cheering her on in all that wishes to do. So from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for your support, your prayers, your love, and your calls and visits.

Sincerely,

The Cuellar Family

April, Elena, and Sergio