Maria's fight with Angiosarcoma of the heart
Donation protected
Hello everyone, my name is Michael. I am writing this on behalf of my beautiful wife and mother of my children Maria Gonzales. who is only 35 years old. We have two children, Natalie who's is 12 and Nathaniel who is 15. Me and Maria are high school sweethearts that will be celebrating our 19 year anniversary together this May. We had plans to spend the rest of our live and grow old together.
This will be a long read, as if feel its best to give the whole story.
Our life changing journey started last year around this time. It was February 2020 when Maria surprised me with some of the best news you could have ever received. She was pregnant , we where both so excited. It was a Friday morning in the middle of April when Maria called me saying something was wrong, I rush home and take her to the hospital where we find out she just had a miscarriage. At this point it was just the beginning of hospital lockdowns due to covid, so a DNC wasn't an option. We proceed to spend the next 5 weeks, multiple high dose rounds of medication with no luck on passing the baby. By week 6 elective surgery opens up and we than have a DNC.
One week later she was rushed back into the ER with Severe stomach pain. The doctors did an ultra sound and found one liter of blood around her pericardial sac. She was rush off into emergency Surgery to drain the fluid. Within the next 24 hours 2 more liters where drained. She spent 14 days alone in an isolated ICU room trying to find out what was going on. The rest of the summer was spent doing test after test and monitoring her heart while she recovered. She had an Eco end of July that showed everything in her heart was looking good. It wasn't more than 2 weeks later where she found herself back into the ER with chest pain. They found what they where calling a clot at the time and decided to go into Surgery to clean it up. Once the surgeon opened her up the bleeding was so severe they thought she was having an aneurysm. At that point they decided to do emergency open heart surgery to stop the bleeding. A biopsy was than taken of an unknown mass in her heart that was seen, which was sent out for testing to the Cleveland clinic, as local pathology test came back inconclusive. She had a team of doctors, and specialist testing and looking for what was causing all these issues. She again spent another 12 days alone in the ICU as the hospital was on lock down.
Thursday, September 3rd 2020 we got news we never expected to have. She was diagnose with an extremely rare and very aggressive cancer called Angiosarcoma of the heart. Angiosarcoma is rare as it is, but Angiosarcoma of the heart is even rarer. The mass growing out of her heart went from being undetectable to 9.8cm in a matter of 30 days.
By that Sunday she was Accepted and hospitalized at Mayo Clinic here in Phoenix where they attempted to control her pain. By that Tuesday September 8th she began a very aggressive round of Chemotherapy in hopes to slow down the mass. Her chemotherapy was inpatient stays where a combination of chemo was ran through her body for 22 hours a day for 4 days. She proceeded to do that every 14-21 days depending how her body was holding up. December 29th she was dropped back off for round 5 of her typical 5 day stay for her Chemotherapy treatments. She felt no different than usual, besides having a headache and blurry vision. She was given a CT/MRI where they found multiple hemorrhaging tumors in her brain. She was then put on neurological watch and medication to control the bleeding. During this time she was fine with no signs of damage, and medication seem to be working and the bleeding stopped. Friday January 1st around 1:30 she passed her neuro test, around 2:30 she was given a new neuro test where they found her entire right side paralyzed and her speech gone. She was than rushed off into a 6+ hour brain surgery to save her life. She spent the following 2 days in a comma and it was uncertain if she would wake up. Not only did she wake up, she actually began to walk just one week later.
Unfortunately she would have permanent damage to her long/short term memory and speech. The cancer has been moving since as its now in he lower spine.
She continues to fight everyday and defy the odds and statistics. The last 6 months of her life has been a hard fight everyday to stay alive , and she did it with a smile on her face and never let it get her down. You would never know how sick she was unless she told you.
Unfortunately there is no protocol or successful treatments, or even treatment plans for this type of cancer, especially with the locations that its attacking.
Treatments have been stopped, as things are responding well and she will be transitioning into a home hospice of sorts very soon, as her quality of life as became the most important thing moving forward.
Maria has struggled so much in the last year and the majority of it was alone as hospitals had no visitation.
I had to leave work as she needs constant 24/7 care and attention. We have exhausted nearly every option we had. We've emptied both our 401ks, life savings and sold everything we could minus our house. Writing this is extremely difficult for me, anyone that knows me knows its very hard for me to ask anyone for help. With no money coming in and what left of our funds rapidly decreasing we are in desperate need of help.
Medical bills and everyday living expenses are stacking up.
If I don't do this we will end up loosing what little we have left including our home, and I'm trying my hardest to keep some normalcy and stability in our childrens life as this is already one of the hardest things they will ever deal with.
Hopefully with the help of you guys me and our kids can just concentrate on spending whatever remaining time we have left with Maria and keeping her as comfortable and happy as we can, as we don't know how much longer we really have together. Every day is so special and I don't want to miss any of it if I can.
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this and possible help us
If anything please send some positive thoughts and prayers out way please
This will be a long read, as if feel its best to give the whole story.
Our life changing journey started last year around this time. It was February 2020 when Maria surprised me with some of the best news you could have ever received. She was pregnant , we where both so excited. It was a Friday morning in the middle of April when Maria called me saying something was wrong, I rush home and take her to the hospital where we find out she just had a miscarriage. At this point it was just the beginning of hospital lockdowns due to covid, so a DNC wasn't an option. We proceed to spend the next 5 weeks, multiple high dose rounds of medication with no luck on passing the baby. By week 6 elective surgery opens up and we than have a DNC.
One week later she was rushed back into the ER with Severe stomach pain. The doctors did an ultra sound and found one liter of blood around her pericardial sac. She was rush off into emergency Surgery to drain the fluid. Within the next 24 hours 2 more liters where drained. She spent 14 days alone in an isolated ICU room trying to find out what was going on. The rest of the summer was spent doing test after test and monitoring her heart while she recovered. She had an Eco end of July that showed everything in her heart was looking good. It wasn't more than 2 weeks later where she found herself back into the ER with chest pain. They found what they where calling a clot at the time and decided to go into Surgery to clean it up. Once the surgeon opened her up the bleeding was so severe they thought she was having an aneurysm. At that point they decided to do emergency open heart surgery to stop the bleeding. A biopsy was than taken of an unknown mass in her heart that was seen, which was sent out for testing to the Cleveland clinic, as local pathology test came back inconclusive. She had a team of doctors, and specialist testing and looking for what was causing all these issues. She again spent another 12 days alone in the ICU as the hospital was on lock down.
Thursday, September 3rd 2020 we got news we never expected to have. She was diagnose with an extremely rare and very aggressive cancer called Angiosarcoma of the heart. Angiosarcoma is rare as it is, but Angiosarcoma of the heart is even rarer. The mass growing out of her heart went from being undetectable to 9.8cm in a matter of 30 days.
By that Sunday she was Accepted and hospitalized at Mayo Clinic here in Phoenix where they attempted to control her pain. By that Tuesday September 8th she began a very aggressive round of Chemotherapy in hopes to slow down the mass. Her chemotherapy was inpatient stays where a combination of chemo was ran through her body for 22 hours a day for 4 days. She proceeded to do that every 14-21 days depending how her body was holding up. December 29th she was dropped back off for round 5 of her typical 5 day stay for her Chemotherapy treatments. She felt no different than usual, besides having a headache and blurry vision. She was given a CT/MRI where they found multiple hemorrhaging tumors in her brain. She was then put on neurological watch and medication to control the bleeding. During this time she was fine with no signs of damage, and medication seem to be working and the bleeding stopped. Friday January 1st around 1:30 she passed her neuro test, around 2:30 she was given a new neuro test where they found her entire right side paralyzed and her speech gone. She was than rushed off into a 6+ hour brain surgery to save her life. She spent the following 2 days in a comma and it was uncertain if she would wake up. Not only did she wake up, she actually began to walk just one week later.
Unfortunately she would have permanent damage to her long/short term memory and speech. The cancer has been moving since as its now in he lower spine.
She continues to fight everyday and defy the odds and statistics. The last 6 months of her life has been a hard fight everyday to stay alive , and she did it with a smile on her face and never let it get her down. You would never know how sick she was unless she told you.
Unfortunately there is no protocol or successful treatments, or even treatment plans for this type of cancer, especially with the locations that its attacking.
Treatments have been stopped, as things are responding well and she will be transitioning into a home hospice of sorts very soon, as her quality of life as became the most important thing moving forward.
Maria has struggled so much in the last year and the majority of it was alone as hospitals had no visitation.
I had to leave work as she needs constant 24/7 care and attention. We have exhausted nearly every option we had. We've emptied both our 401ks, life savings and sold everything we could minus our house. Writing this is extremely difficult for me, anyone that knows me knows its very hard for me to ask anyone for help. With no money coming in and what left of our funds rapidly decreasing we are in desperate need of help.
Medical bills and everyday living expenses are stacking up.
If I don't do this we will end up loosing what little we have left including our home, and I'm trying my hardest to keep some normalcy and stability in our childrens life as this is already one of the hardest things they will ever deal with.
Hopefully with the help of you guys me and our kids can just concentrate on spending whatever remaining time we have left with Maria and keeping her as comfortable and happy as we can, as we don't know how much longer we really have together. Every day is so special and I don't want to miss any of it if I can.
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this and possible help us
If anything please send some positive thoughts and prayers out way please
Organizer
Michael Blancke
Organizer
Glendale, AZ