Imeldas Fight Against Breast Cancer

Greetings!

My lovely sister is 56 yrs old and is breast cancer patient at stage 4. She had her first chemo last Jan. 29, 2020 at Lung Center. She was confined because her CBC was low but her second session continued last March 7 at Capitol Medical, still in confinement due to a bacterial infection on her wound in her left breast and left armpit. Her third session was supposed to be last week but since there's a pandemic, it was put on hold.

Our dilemma now is how to seek medical help for her. Not only to resume her chemo but to address her electrolyte imbalance. Last April 1-4, she did not eat nor drink anything. She was having extreme LBM and vomiting. We were not informed by her oncologist that these are some of the side effects of chemo. We were only told to watch for hair loss, nausea, vomiting, water retention on her legs at constipation. We were not told that there may be other side effects like from constipation to extreme diarrhea, difficulty in breathing, sensitivity in her taste buds and smell resulting to loss of appetite, etc. We did not know what to do since we were afraid to bring her to a hospital and expose her to COVID19 patients. That is why it took us three days to decide. On the 4th of April, around 5pm, she was not responding anymore to conversations and just had a blank look on her face. That's when we decided to take the risk and take her to Capitol Medical Center ER. On the way there, she had a seizure and again when we got to the ER.

Since she was having LBM, a COVID19 symptom based on the DOH protocol, they tagged her as Peron Under Invetigation (PUI) and placed her in the ER together with other PUI and other possible COVID19 positive patients. The doctors said they cannot do anything since they have to follow the so called algorithm despite that they have the medical records of my sister as a breast cancer patient, and her onco as their consultant.

On the evening of April 5, we were told that the management have stopped admission of patients leaving us no choice but to look for other hospital for my sister to be admitted due to her vulnerability of being infected in their ER. We have tried calling other hospitals who will admit her but they are all full. Scared as hell, we decided to discharge our sister under "Against Medical Advice" status, signed a waiver and took off using my brother's van looking for a hospital to transfer my sister to. From past 11pm until 10am, we tried in the areas of Q.C. and Manila but not one hospital took her in. Its either they refuse because the hospital is a COVID19 center and my sister being a cancer patient is immuno-compromised and they are afraid she'll get infected or the hospital is not equipped or is COVID19-free and her transfer paper from Capitol Medical Center's ER shows she is tagged as a Person Under Investigation.

It has been a grueling month for everyone. Her cancer and the pandemic has taken a large toll on her recovery. It has also greatly strained our resources. As much as we put so much effort, it seems that we are always facing a large hurdle.

Me and our whole family would like to knock on your kind hearts. Any amount, help and prayers are highly appreciated and would contribute a large step to her full recovery. We believe that she is strong but with your help, we may make her strong enough to win this fight.

Your donations will be used for her ongoing and future chemotherapy sessions, med supplies, medicines, vitamins and other medical expenses.

For further inquiries you can contact us at 09656770764- Ador Cortezano (her brother). For Gcash, Paymaya, etc. Please do contact us!

Thank you and God bless to all :)