Help Rowi Defeat Leukemia & Save Him From Starving

About Me (The Organizer)

Hi everyone, my name is Hiromi Chai and I'm helping my friend- Roelio Figueroa (Nickname: Rowi) to do crowdfunding as i reached my limit for offering my financial help to him. He said he has no more family and greatly rely on me for emotional support as well as financial support. Even if we are not blood related but he perceived me as his only family who truly care for him as everyone else has abandon him to die. I see him as my friend as well as family too, that's why i had been constantly remit money from my savings in hope to buy him some time and to save his life. It happened that my power is limited, I wish I can help more but I realize his medical fee had surpass the help that i could give him now and i had nearly finish my hard earn savings on him. I truly wish I can help more but I can't afford it anymore as my current salary only allow me to feed myself and my family most of the time and the speed to earn extra money is slower than the spendings required. I have old parents to take care too and i may lose my job during this pandemic as the company that i work for is not doing well. I'm very stress and struggling in a situation where my financial help is limited but my friend need a financial assistant to survive. I don't wanna give up on a friend just because of financial problem, especially he had survived many round near death experience and doctor said his treatment is in good progress too.

To be honest, many of people I know told me to leave him/ ignore him but my heart can never do that, coz i know there's hope in him and i don't want him to die. I know my power is very limited, therefore i'm seeking help from the public instead of giving up on my dear friend.

We have come this far so I truly wish that somebody here can understand my feelings and offer me some help, whether is to help support him to get treatment or at least help to buy some time for my friend to find another solution to survive.

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What Happened to Roelio Figueroa?

(The picture above is Roelio Figueroa with his pet that he raised for a long time before diagnosed with leukemia. As His parents had abandoned him, he rely on his pet as his mental support. At time when Rowi is terribly ill, his sister will help to take care of the dog)

I first get to know rowi via an online game called [Genshin Impact], we had been a game mates for a long time and we even get in touch in social media (fb) until now. Despite the distance that we have, we are actually no different than real friend that stay in the same place. I still remember when we first met in game, i suspected him as a playboy that trying to flirt with me for being sweet to me. As I'm a straightforward person, i told him about my concern but he clarify he has no bad intention, just sad and lonely that he feel his friend are not his real friend and need someone to play with him to escape reality. As a person who don't have much friend too, I can relate on how he feel and since that we have been really good gaming friends.

Not long after, something terrible happened to him and he come to me for comfort, telling me his big brother committed suicide and die in a horrible way. He is too sad to handle his emotion and can't stop crying. The way his brother suicide is also very horrifying, I heard his brother stab himself with a pen knife right on his chest, blood splashes everywhere and he even get suspected by police when this incident happened. Luckily the police found a suicide note and cleared his name. My friend rowi has been self blame on himself on that incident, he said the last time he seen his brother was the time his brother being drunk after breaking up with his girlfriend. He didn't pay much attention to his brother and went to his room to end the day. Who knows the next day he wake up, tragedy happened. At this time, i didn't know my friend has serious illness, I just play games with him to help him forgetting the pain he is experiencing. I had been comforting my friend all this time without knowing he had leukemia.

1 week later after his brother incident, rowi gave me his game account that he treasured a lot and worth some money. I reject him at first but he claims that his pc has broken down and need my help to take care of it for him. I didn't notice anything unusual about it and play his account on behalf of him. Until one day i was kinda busy to continue to play his account and ask him when can he come back to play his game then only he tell me the truth that he had been nose bleeding while playing with me all this time and got fainted and was sent to hospital for blood transfusion. He sent me a message of coughing blood too.

It is truly a shocking news for me cause i never encounter such dramatic things in my life before. I mean my life is dramatic but it's just me, i never know someone close to me is suffering this much and still hide it from me, what's worse, it's a leukemia Q_Q

After knowing the situation, I really can't accept what is happening because I didn't discover any unusual behavior from him, i didn't know he doesn't have much time left and may die anytime. All this time, he just want me to spend my time playing with him, and he keep on telling me that I'm his only true friend in life and even given me his game account that he treasured. At this moment, I feel so sad for not notice it earlier and feel guilty for being ignorance to him coz he had been too clingy on me that sometimes I hardly have time for myself. I told him about how I feel and apologize to him but still he told me I will always be his true friend in his life. He said he still looking forward for his birthday to come so he won't die that easily and told me not to be sad for him. All he ever ask from me is not to give up on him.

During that time, I'm not hopeful enough to think my friend have chance to survive, i thought the only way i can do for him is to accompany him and send him away with the happiest memories in his life. I know he had been looking forward about his birthday so I decided to gift him an unforgettable birthday gift in his entire life. As I live in different country from my friend, and due to ongoing pandemic that is happening, it may take months to send him a gift from my country so i beg another friend i know from ph to help me buy gift in their country and send it to my friend rowi. It was an early birthday gift because i was afraid that he don't have much time left. The time my friend receive the gift, he was extremely happy and flexing in fb. His little sister also say thanks to me too. This gift that i gave him is a game merchandise, a [vision] with [geo] element symbolize strength. In that game we play, vision is like a superpower given by god to selected people with [ambition]. As this game bind us together, this gift made it extra meaningful for my friend. He said no one has ever been this nice to him, he never receive birthday gift and he is extremely happy for it. Even so, he did not go for any treatment for his leukemia so I expected maybe I will have to say goodbye to him soon.

A few day later, he still have to go for hospital for blood transfusion, while we having some time chatting about game stuff, all in a sudden, i receive weird msg, it was his sister using his fb messenger informing me that his brother had take off his blood transfusion, fainted and sent to ICU. I asked his sister why is this happening? He still seems fine and chat with me a while ago, why is it all in a sudden in ICU now? She said to me that his brother said he can't stand hospital anymore, he wanna go home, and she think he is joking so her brother take off the blood transfusion immediately.

As rowi was spotted fainted on time, after some roller coaster moment, doctor manage to save him from dying, the time i know he is alright was midnight so i went to sleep after hearing the good news. The next day when I wake up in the morning, i got a msg from rowi msg me about him being [ok] and ask me not to worry. My first reaction is to tell him that i'm glad that he is still alive but i don't feel like talking to a person who doesn't treasure their own life. So he clarify to me that he is not suicide, he just feel tired of hospital and trying to go home to play game with me. He said to me that if he were to die, he want his time to be spend on playing game with me. In order to make him value his life more, instead of pleasing him all this time, i try to make him understand that only when he start to love himself, others will be able to love him. After some time of being cold to him, he msg and promised me he will never do stupid things again. He said for the first time he feel people care about him and he doesn't want to die now. He decided that me and his little sister is his purpose of life now.

A day later, i receive message from him in the afternoon telling me that because he need to rest more so he is going to rest now. I feel a little bit odd but i trust he will not do something stupid for what happened earlier. I message him back but didn't get a reply until night time where he send me a photo of him in the hospital, accepting the proposal to treat his leukemia and just had a surgery on his back. You know i'm just so shocked to know this, the very last minute it feel like a person is giving up hope but the next moment he went back to the hospital to accept treatment. He sent me a photo of the surgery on his back as a reminder to me too.

I was kinda salute with the way when he just wake up from surgery and he can still text me, he told me it is extremely painful and it scare him to death too but he have a [vision] now, which is not to sadden people who still care for him. As I know the surgery would cost a lot of money, out of curiosity, i asked him about the surgery fee. He said nothing much about it, just say he told his dad about it already. The hospital will deal with his dad and said probably his dad will ask him to repay back the money in near future. The treatment the doctor suggest him to treat leukemia is Autologous transplant where they had to operate him and extract stem cell from his body before they can begin chemotherapy that will destroy cells in their body. The stem cell collected will be treated and put back to his body after the chemotherapy treatment ended.The doctor said his sickness can be cured if his treatment progress well. The time he get surgery is 2 weeks before his birthday.

Everything seems fine until he discharged from hospital and 1 week later, i got an emergency msg frm him that his dad has been coming to his house, went rampaged and destroy his belongings. His father throw his belongings and broken his pc and hand phone after telling him to go to die. He told me he is contacting me by borrowing his neighbor's hand phone and just to update me with what happened to him. Out of curiosity, i asked why and how did this thing happened. He told me that his dad doesn't want to handle the surgery and medical bill for him and ask him to pay by himself, because he ignore and walk out from the house, his dad destroyed his belongings and the police came and send his father to detention for a day. He told me that his father want him to die so that he don't have to take care of the bill.

I can't believe a father would be this mean to his own son and the wording from his dad hurt him so damn much. At this time, i was worry about how my friend survive this hardship since nobody could afford the medical bill. And obviously my friend doesn't have financial ability to pay either as all this time he is receiving allowance from his dad to sustain his living all this time under the court order all this time. That time i suggested crowdfunding to my friend but he refuse it, saying he doesn't deserve to be alive but he do want to live for person who care about him. He told me maybe it's time for him to prepare for his death but if he have a choice, he wish he can live on. He told me that not everyone is fortunate, not him, telling me if one day god take him away, he had already sign agreement to donate his organ away so somebody can live on behalf of him. Knowing this, i can't bare to see my friend die just like that without doing anything, if he is going to donate his organ when he dead, when his life is already short, shouldn't he deserve to live much longer life and if possible to defeat his cancer and realize his wish before he part way with us?

At this point, i'm really concern how my friend gonna pay the medical bill, he just told me [i got this] and when i ask will his dad coming to his house to cause problem again? He just said his dad doesn't live with him and his father has been banned from the village. At this point, my friend lose his father and never get in touch again.

My friend told me he had lost his family and beg me to stay and he said he gonna work for it and he also can't stand a lonely life without getting in touch for me and without a phone that spoiled by his dad. Knowing his health condition doesn't allow him to work and he is definitely the stubborn type of people that would go all strength to do something without measuring his own limit, in order not to disappoint my friend, i sent remittance to help him get a phone that allow him to connect with me as well as help him in life. At first he refuse it, after i told him that it is a phone i buy for myself to keep in touch with him and he is the one who help me safe keep my belongings, he agree to it cause he doesn't want to lose connection with me and keep on telling me he will work to pay me back the money even if i don't ask for it.

A day later, i'm still concerned how is he gonna settle the medical bill but before i manage to ask it, he come to me and asked if i paid his bill? He informed me some mysterious woman paid his bill and he can't think of anyone who would do that but i'm 100% sure it's not me since i don't have his medical bill. So i asked maybe it's from his mom? He said I may be right on that but he doubt it cause his mom has fled away with another man and abandoned him when he is at age of 14, he lose contact with his mom too.

After getting the hint of mysterious woman, he get to know from his uncle who work as the doctor in the hospital that the mysterious woman who pay the bill is indeed his mom. At this point i was kinda relief with the situation my friend experience, i thought he will surely left to die and with debt that he can't pay. He bring me great news that he is able to go on the chemotherapy treatment from the bill that his mom paid for. Everything seems fine and my friend started to look forward about his birthday which is near around the corner. He contacted teacher from his university for a work from home job that require him to do some decoding, he said he wanna buy a gift for himself even though i had been giving him advise that his body can't handle pc radiation and might collapsed when he just started his first chemotherapy. He stubbornly telling me he will be fine and birthday is the only day he feel special and happy so no matter what, he wanna earn for it and buy himself a gift as who knows it is the last gift he would experience in life.

I truly had a bad feeling about it but i can't crush a person's wish either so i just ask him to rest more and stop when needed. Just 2 days before his birthday, it was near midnight and lucky enough i'm still online, his sister contacted me using my friend's fb messenger telling me his bro is in life threatening situation, fainted in the hospital and have no blood for him. It's too sudden and shocked me badly, i wasn't ready to send my friend away, not when he just got a chance to start chemo treatment. His sister said the hospital only have 1 emergency blood but it's not for him. So i recall that my friend used to told me his ex donated her blood to him before for feeling guilty to cheat on him and dump him, so i told his sister to contact his ex for help. His sister did not reply me as it was kinda emergency situation, after some time, she told me his brother has gain back consciousness. When i know this news, i truly feel a huge weight on my shoulder has been lift away and went to bed. The next day later, i give him some speech regarding to what happened and prohibited him to work until his treatment end. He agree to it and 2 days passed and it was finally his birthday. i'm so glad that he managed to survived and celebrate the birthday he looking forward and manage to survive until the end of the month.

Just when everything seems well, i get into another roller coaster ride again! It was near end of the month and my friend told me his dad didn't send him any allowance and he is having hard time to pay the bill and he can't sacrifice his sister portion of allowance on him too as they hardly be able to buy food and not to mention about school. he recalled that the allowance that his dad have to give under the court order has ended as it only support him until age of 22 where he just reach it after his birthday earlier. So I decided to hire him as my virtual assistance by hiring him to play a game with me and to talk to me, this payout is to buy food and pay bill. At first he refuse it and feel ashamed to receive money from me, but i manage to convince him to accept it as the situation leave him no choice and if he recovered from this sickness, he can repay the money back to me, so he promise me too when he finished treatment and when everything went well again, he will try his best to repay me. He did try to work for me, but with his health condition, it's really like its better to focus in treatment so i asked him to delay the job and work for me after his treatment ended. Realizing my financial help is limited so i thought about asking him to get in touch with his mom for help. He tried to do that but not even his uncle was able to get in touch with his mom after the last remittance. It was like a farewell gift, something she did to repent on what she did and disappeared from this world. My friend feel huge despair for recalling his parents leave him to die alone. Somehow he said he will be strong for me, he will be strong to live for not wasting the opportunity and effort by others to keep him alive so he continue to go on the chemotherapy treatment. He said he will survive and will not die in debt.

Two weeks after the chemo treatment, he said he is feeling weaker, having shortness of breath and keep bleeding. He told me he can get through the situation, he said he will be alive for me, so he will keep his promise. I feel unusual of what is happening and google up, it's true the chemo will give lots of side effects but his symptoms more like leukemia than side effects. I started to doubt if he truly go for chemo treatment. So i bring myself up to ask him about his treatment, he said his doctor said body need time to gather body mass to go to another chemo treatment, he have to wait before he can go for it. I asked if doctor prescribe med he had to take but he didn't buy because of not having money? He said yes with sad emoji. He told me that he didn't really want me to know but since i asked, he couldn't lie about it and told me that the next chemo was schedule in about another 2 weeks or 1 month and he will only be given med during his hospital treatment. He told me if it is his destiny to die, he will be ready to accept it. He said he can't sacrifice to make her sister starve for buying the med for him. So i try to bitch slap him, telling him by the time he waited for his treatment, he could have die. Being positive is one thing, needing financial assistance to survive is more practical way to survive. So I asked him: Do you want to live or leave?

He replied: [To Live]

Seeing my friend struggling with starving and lacking of med, facing with another months of bills, even though my financial support is limited, i used my long time savings to save him with the thoughts that we have come this far now, it's still too early to give up now. Even though my job payout is not high and facing the problem of losing job, i feel that i can earn the money back if i manage to save my friend first. But the time my friend suffered shortness of breath and difficult in breathing, it was late night, i was worry if still be able to make it alive until the next day as he don't have medicine with him and remittance center is close too. Still, I thought about asking him to go for pharmacy to ask for the med fee and try my best to get him the med he need to see if he can survive this hardship.

He sent me a list of med he need with the price after he went to the pharmacy. Later, out of no where, he told me he didn't know there's still kind people exist in this world. He further said that the pharmacist gave him 1 day of medicine for his leukemia treatment as he reminded her of her young brother who had the disease like him but died during radiation treatment. At this time, It was shocking to know that even with on-going treatment, you can still die from treatment. My friend told me that seems the doctor didn't notice the boy can't handle the treatment, tats why the pharmacist's brother died from treatment. So i told my friend that he shouldn't keep on going to the treatment when he feel his body can't handle it. It all thanks to the medicine sponsored by the pharmacist, he was able to survive the day and the day after, my friend got my remittance and continue to take med and feeling much better after that.

My friend thank me for saving his life twice and he promise me he will win the cancer in his body and achieve remission for not wasting the effort and wishes from other people. Then again, it comes to another month of worry about food and bills, and facing the tendency of losing my job, in fact I'm started to get stressed out because the speed of spending my savings is faster than what i can save or achieve, i know soon i will run out of it and soon i will be unable to help my friend. I really want to help my friend, I can't afford to see my friend die too but my financial is limited. As my friend have no more family that can support him, it leave me no choice to keep on using my savings to help him get through another month so that he have better survival rate, to gain enough body mass to undergo the chemotherapy & radiation treatment and win his battle with leukemia.

At the same time, my mom discovered that i had been sending money to my friend a lot that she started to suspected he is love scammer. I told my mom I know what i have been doing, it was never my friend's intention to receive money from me in the beginning, it's because i couldn't afford to see him die, which is why he choose to fight to live to realize my wish and not to let all the effort go for him become wasted. We are halfway to win the battle with leukemia but it is true that we are struggling with financial. The current situation face by friend is either die with starving or die with leukemia. The problem is my savings nearly use up now and i have old parents that both wasn't working, solely rely on me to feed them too. All this time we just manage to get through our living with lots of budgeting and limitation. My mom said to me that we are even having problem to pay for food and bills now, and our power is limited. Its true that we can't help a person if we need help our self too, that's why i had no choice but trying to seek help and do crowdfunding with the hope of not giving up my friend.

I told my friend exactly what my mother think so he could understand my financial situation more and to accept the idea of crowdfunding. I didn't expect to get an over reaction about the way my mom suspected him as love scammer. He insist that he had no choice but to take it just to survive and win leukemia for me, it was never his intention to accept financial aid from me because he is very ashamed that he can't work for himself and had to take my money from me. He told me he is going to give up his treatment if it cause me so much trouble but i told him not to give up hope as there's way to make things right if I get a permission from him to do crowdfunding.

After some explanation, he manage to calm down and understand my situation and also my mom point of view. He also learnt that my mom didn't think of him as love scammer after i show her the pictures of what happened. After going through these much hardship, survive til now, he said to me that he will accept crowdfunding now as it will not burden me and my mom and he can also realize our wishes to see him alive and normal again. Besides, the doctor said the chemo treatment he underwent all this time show sign of progressing well, so he will keep his will strong and try his best to win this leukemia too.

Right now, Rowi is planning to end things and win his fight against leukemia for accepting doctor's suggestion of going constant radiation treatment which he will either win the battle to achieve cancer remission or die to bring us eternal peace. In order to end suffering for me and himself, my friend said he will be willing to risk it and he will win this fight for me after saving him twice. He told me with this much time of preparing and gaining body mass he need, he is confident enough to win this battle for us. Even the doctor said he has high chance of winning after coming to this far and survived until now.

We are now preparing and gather the financial needed to undergo another stage of his Induction therapy, his final battle to win against leukemia via radiation therapy. Of course, after achieving remission, he will still have to go for consolidation treatment for 2 years, he still have to continue to take med to prevent leukemia relapse. If his treatment is success, if his cancer didn't relapse after treatment end, it is high chance that his cancer is cured.

According to the doctor, the Constant Radiation Therapy will require him to get hospitalized and get monitored all the time. He will be given constant radiation treatment until his test shown no cancer cell in his body anymore (In other words, achieve remission). Sadly, the treatment fee that paid by his mom only covered partially of the chemotherapy treatment fee, It doesn't cover all. My friend still had to pay for other cost such as hospital accomodation, hospital food, x-ray fee, other medical treatment to treat his cancer side effects and he would also need extra money to buy supplement needed to keep his body from suffering too much harm from radiation treatment. This treatment will take 1 to 2 week (depends on body condition) and most likely he can discharge from hospital in just 1 week time. The doctor further said that if rowi managed to achieve cancer remission, he would still feel weak and have low immune. It will take times for the body to recovery from the harm of radiation treatment and also med side effects. The recovery time may takes 6 mths to 1 year to feel better as he still need to continue to take med to prevent cancer relapse too. It is expected my friend would not be able to handle much job and earn himself a living.

Right now, even with partial medical support from his mom, we still have to struggle in food and bill. The doctor say my friend have high chance to achieve cancer remission if he can continue the treatment. Rowi had survived so many round and his willpower to survive even amazed the doctor. The current problem is Rowi is facing either die from give up on treatment or die from starving as his financial aid has been cut off by his cruel dad who wish him to die.

As both of his parents abandoned him, leaving a sick man with no ability to work to earn for a living, and with my financial help is limited, i seek of help from the public to help my friend win against leukemia and save him from starving. The power of one is limited but with the power of everyone, we can save a person's life and change a person's life together. We can create miracle and create more hope for other patients who suffered from the same disease too. So i beg for your kindness and believe my friend can win this battle and survive this. Please don't give up on my friend and help me to share my campaign so more people can help too.