JP's Mission: Surgery for Mom's Recovery

Our mother, Marylee Paragua, is the heart and soul of our family. She is the most selfless and generous person we know. She has worked her whole life as a nurse (often working two jobs) to support our family. She never asks for anything and is always the first to give what she can to anyone she meets. Right now, we are asking if friends and loved ones can give to her for the first time.

On March 17th, 2025 the unimaginable happened to our family. We were just at the start of a long-anticipated family vacation to the Philippines when our mom had a very traumatic accident. After falling down a flight of stone stairs with no railing for support, our beloved mama sustained many injuries. She suffered from a subdural hematoma, fractured ribs, a chip fracture in her elbow, along with multiple stitches and bruises all over her body. It hurts to see the strongest person you know in immeasurable pain. After a week of pain management and supporting our mom around the clock, she was discharged from Capitol Medical Center in the Philippines under the pretense that her injuries were healing and she would be fine doing physical therapy at our uncle’s condo.

Optimistic that things were finally taking a turn for the better, our mom started physical therapy at our uncle’s house and my wife, our son, my sisters and I headed back to the United States while our dad stayed in the Philippines to help support while she recovered. The first few days of facetime calls and things seemed to be moving in the right direction. However, after a few days we noticed a rapid decline in cognition in our mother and had our dad and aunt call an ambulance to take her back to the hospital.

On Sunday, April 6th things somehow took a turn for the worse. Our mom was readmitted into a new hospital, St. Luke’s with an even longer list of complications. Unfortunately, she had acute kidney injury and needed a round of hemodialysis along with gastrointestinal bleeding requiring a nasogastric tube to decompress her stomach. On top of everything else, St. Luke’s Hospital found a lumbar fracture in her spine that the first hospital somehow missed. The previously recommended physical therapy may have caused more damage, and our mother needs to have an emergency 8-hour surgery on her spine or she’s at risk of becoming paralyzed.

Since this is all happening in the Philippines, American health insurance is not covering any of the expenses. This surgery, on top of all of the other hospital costs, is extremely expensive without the help of American health insurance. We are unable to have our mom take the long journey back to the United States because of her inability to move, let alone sit up. She is stuck in the Philippines until she can fully recover. It is going to be an extremely long road until our amazing mama is back to normal. We are asking for any help that you can give to our family during this unexpected and extremely difficult time. Whatever we raise through this GoFundMe will be just the beginning of helping cover some of numerous hospital bills and physical therapy to come. Thank you so much for your support, my sisters, father, and I deeply thank you all.