Travel and medical expenses Guam-San Diego

Our Mom, Donatila San Nicolas Olkeriil, lives on the island of Guam. She is 71 years young and is the kindest, most loving and the most beautiful person inside and out. She has helped anyone in need and now needs help.

She needs surgery that cannot be done on Guam; patients are referred off-island, so we are asking for help with her travel expenses and copayment for the surgery in San Diego.

She started feeling random stomach pain and discomfort in 2018 but thought nothing of it, thinking it was something minor like gas pains. March 2020, the pain returned, but much more severe. After going a couple of times to her doctor with the same complaint, an MRI was finally taken. A mass was found in her pancreas. Much to our dismay, she did not tell anyone of this mass. Covid comes along, and all doctors’ appointments are canceled, including her follow-up appointment.

Fast forward to November 2021 – Mom and our youngest sister travel to San Diego to meet her new grandson. Unfortunately, their short vacation turned into a 4-month stay because said sister fell ill. I believe Mom was so overwhelmed with her baby’s illness she put her own aside, hiding her discomfort and pains. Fast forward to October 15, 2022 - Mom was taken to the emergency room in severe pain. She is admitted, scans are taken, and put on a waitlist for a biopsy to see if the mass is cancerous. Two days later, they have an opening, and as she is prepped for the surgery, another doctor compares the new scan with the one from 2020 and cancels the biopsy, stating it can’t be cancer since it did not have any significant growth. She was given pain pills and sent home.

The mass needs to be removed; it is blocking her small intestines and causing her so much pain. We love our island but the medical care being provided is lacking in many ways, and that is putting it very lightly. Most are misdiagnosed or untreated. For example, a family member was told he had cancer earlier this year. Although he was admitted to the hospital several times, he was never treated, with no chemo or radiation. He was sent home and passed away three months later. We are asking for donations so Mom can travel to San Diego for the proper care. We are confident the doctors in San Diego will be able to properly treat her, not take guesses and prescribe pain pills with no treatment plan. They will remove the mass, and Mom can be pain-free once again.

She is waiting for the medical referral and authorization from the insurance company. Still, we want to be financially prepared now so once that is finalized, we can move quickly to get her the care she needs.

Funds received will pay her insurance deductible and purchase airline tickets to San Diego. Although insurance coverages are to be determined, we pray they will cover the surgery and all the hospital expenses. We will figure all that out when the time comes; we are concentrating on getting her stateside.

If you cannot donate, we humbly ask for prayers for our rock, our everything!