Support Victor's Family Through Medical Crisis

Some of you may know, but a lot don't. The past 8 months have been very hard for my family, and we have fallen behind in the midst of ongoing medical issues with my family. I honestly don't even know where to start but from the beginning.

The last week of April, my oldest son had a mental crisis and ended up being admitted to the hospital for a week. Just two days after he was released, my 2-year-old daughter was admitted to Boston Children's Hospital for 5 days for an emergency surgery on her neck due to a staph infection in a gland in her neck. Soon after coming home from that trip, my husband fell very ill very quickly. He had lost 50 lbs in the matter of 2 months, experiencing anemia, constant fevers, vomiting, dizziness, and shortness of breath among many other symptoms. He was constantly in and out of the hospitals and doctors.

In August, they sent him to the cancer center to see if he had leukemia due to all the symptoms and enlarged spleen and lymph nodes. By the end of August, we found out he did not have cancer, but instead found out he had late-stage HIV, which had already turned into AIDS. He had a CD4 count of only 52. Up until this time, he was still trying to work the best he could given his symptoms. But once the specialist saw him, they said he could not work anymore. He has had this for over 10 years and never knew it was literally killing him. And even though he is on treatment now, it still can kill him if he gets sick with anything. They said for the next 2 years is the danger zone.

This has been a long journey already. We did apply for SSDI, but as everyone knows, that takes a while. In the meantime, we fell behind a lot on bills trying to keep food on the table for our kids. We lost our car already, and I'm trying not to lose our apartment. If you know Victor, he's always been a hard worker and willing to help people. We have four kids, and we are trying to keep things as normal as possible for them during this hard time.