Save our greatest blessing to survive this battle with cancer.

Hi! I am Monique Castillo, a young stroke survivor from Cavite, Philippines. Yes, I had a stroke due to a congenital brain malformation when I was 18, year 2008. And my Papa, he has served as my very drive to survive for he is my greatest blessing in life.

Our Papa used to work as a seafarer for almost 2 decades; he chose to sacrifice seeing us grow up just to give us a comfortable life. He is a very responsible father, husband and a son, a friendly and simple man with a generous heart and faith in the Lord, too. His existence has always been our number one reminder why we see this life as constantly beautiful.

Unexpectedly, after 10 years since I had a major stroke. Last year, April 13, 2018, our wonderful Papa Gerry has been diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer.

His oncologist prescribed him to undergo 6 cycles of chemotherapy, it was planned that after his first 4 chemo cycles, he would already undergo a surgery to remove the tumor in his colon. Sadly, after his 4 cycles, it was found out that the tumor got even bigger to the extent that it expanded up to his bladder, therefore, the surgeon decided not to execute the surgery yet because it could make my dad’s life critical if forced. Thus, the surgeon just put a colostomy bag on his stomach to ease his severe abdominal pain and terrible bowel movement.

His oncologist decided to still continue his chemotherapy with the hope that his 2 remaining chemo cycles would finally shrink the tumor since the good effect of the chemotherapy is, it hasn’t allowed the cancer to metastasize. Nevertheless, after his 6^th chemo session, he started to experience severe abdominal pain again and episodes of high fever until the stitches on his stomach got removed because it was found out that his tumor got bigger again and worse, infected, too. Now, his surgeon prescribed him to have radiotherapy sessions, hoping that this protocol would finally work in shrinking his tumor so my papa can already proceed to a tumor removal surgery once it gets smaller.

The radiotherapy oncologist told us that there's really a high possibility that his tumor can be shrunk by having radiotherapy that will be given to my papa for 26 consecutive days which will cost around 200 thousand pesos. He also said that this could also be combined with chemotherapy.

My father is a single parent with five children and he used to be our breadwinner. Thus, this shattering event in our lives has also caused the unexpected blow to our finances. Me and my siblings, my eldest brother who’s already a family man and my younger sister who has just started her career have been doing our best to survive our Papa's life, our family needs and the education of our two younger siblings. Our grandparents, aunts, uncles, relatives and dear friends have been supporting us as well to ease our emotional and financial burden. However, my Papa has been in and out of the hospital since March 2019 and he’s currently in the hospital again because of his stomach’s infection. Thus, our bills are piling up faster than we could accumulate for my dad’s medical funds.

As a daughter, I wanted to do everything to survive our father’s life, and see him happy again. That is why I’m here, with my family, knocking on your kind hearts for prayers and support to raise funds for my papa’s fight against cancer. Our family will forever be grateful for any kind of help that you could offer in this tough time. It’s been a long journey but I know that God has never abandoned us especially, my Papa.

If ever you desire to send some help for my Papa but not able to make it through Paypal. You may send it directly to my bank accounts below:

BPI (Bank of the Philippine Islands): 0959-1394-66

BDO (Banco De Oro) : 001010270808

Here are the steps on how to donate through paypal:

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1. Put the Pesos amount

2. Continue and donate using PayPal or Credit/Debit Cards. Thank you! ❤️

Every little blessing saves a dream and saves a life. Thank you so much and may God bless you even more.