Murilo's end of life care

This was supposed to be a boring story. Boy meets girl, it doesn’t quite work out. They reconnect a few years later and start dating. Dating becomes engagement, university changes to employment, engagement to marriage. Barbecues on the weekends, soccer, video games, a dog. Years go by. A move to Canada. Life is good, maybe some kids when things settle down. Perhaps take up camping, retire not-to-old to enjoy it a little. Some decades of planning ahead.

Well, life had other plans.

A painful headache during one of the worst snowstorms in Toronto’s history, January 2022, prompted him to the ER. Husband and wife, wading side by side through waist-deep snow since the roads were blocked.

Brain cancer, aggressive, rare. Incurable. The doctors were clear: years, not decades.

The war started right away: surgeries, chemotherapy, alternative treatments. An uphill battle, but fought with everything possible. From breadwinner to long-term disability, from student to delivery driver, they fought on. In sickness and in health. The treatment worked, the tumour shrunk, the personality came back, things started looking up again.

Maybe get back to work? Maybe the boring can still happen?

Well, life had other plans.

A few months later, the symptoms came back, prompting a new round of tests. The tumour had started growing again, and new tumours appeared. More rounds of treatments, and different medications. Some relief, but no actual improvement. The doctors then prescribed yet another round of medication, but as means to ease the inevitable, to alleviate the symptoms. He is officially terminal. Years are now months.

I wish this was fiction, but the husband’s name is Murilo, and the wife is called Viviam. I’ve known them for the 17 years that it took to write their life together. The goal of this campaign is to ease the burden of their upcoming months, to make Murilo's end of life comfortable and to give Viviam time with him. There’s nothing anyone can do about the cancer, but I want to take care of the rest: rent, food, ongoing medical bills, some fun times doing the things they love. That way they can focus on each other and write the ending of their story as best as they can.