Support Arcy Cuartero’s Journey to Recovery

Our mom (Arcelyn Cuartero) has always been our champion, most of her young and adult life was spent working all kinds of odd jobs for her seven kids and her family. If you personally know her, then we know you can attest to her kindness and generosity towards everyone.

To the best of her ability, she would always try to give back to the community and the church because she knows how it feels like to have to start from nothing and how any help no matter how small got her to where she is now -- that is why every time she is given the chance, she pays it forward.

Throughout her life though, she always had to deal with health issues - after seven pregnancies she had to undergo 3 operations dilation and curettage (raspa) because of excessive vaginal bleeding (she became anemic and had to do a number of blood transfusion), And just last year (December 2018) she had major surgery to remove stones from her gallbladder. We thought that she was on her way to recovery but we noticed that despite the success of the surgery, she experienced unexplained weight loss and pain from different parts of her body and her creatinine doubled compared to normal levels.

We went back to the doctor, and they referred us to a hematologist - concerned with the treatment of blood disorders and malignancies, including types of hemophilia, leukemia, lymphoma and sickle-cell anemia. That is when they confirmed the diagnosis (after doing a bone marrow biopsy and another round of blood transfusion) of Multiple Myeloma Stage III - Multiple myeloma is a cancer that forms in a type of white blood cell called a plasma cell. Plasma cells help you fight infections by making antibodies that recognize and attack germs. Multiple myeloma causes cancer cells to accumulate in the bone marrow, where they crowd out healthy blood cells.

Cancer cells targets the bones & kidneys. We had to act fast because at that point the cancer itself was damaging her kidney - leading to kidney failure, her elevated renal function test results suggest that she might require dialysis. Apart from this, after a full skeletal survey, we found multiple lytic lesions and 2 fractures on her ribs.

Everything was happening too fast, my mom barely had time to understand her sickness but we had to start her chemo immediately.

We started her chemo last February 25, since then she has been on her 4th cycle of chemotherapy, our physician have now informed us that she's ready for a stem cell transplant to remove all existing cancer cells in her blood.

Most of our family's savings (including all our salaries) have mostly been spent on her rounds of chemo - amounting to 150,000 pesos every month plus medicines. We are currently having a hard time raising enough funds to pay for her stem cell transplant, the surgery itself amounts to 2 million pesos on the plus with supporting medications.

Our mom is fighting and she is fighting hard, though there are times when she would feel like she doesn't want to continue anymore - let me tell you how hard it is to see your mom cry and feel so helpless - she's still going through the everyday.

We just need a little help from our friends and family, even anyone who know the struggles of dealing with this type of cancer (this is a lifetime sickness, no cure, but we hope to make our mom's years better and something she'll be able to enjoy). We hope to raise enough by the end of July so that we can start the transplant.

Our mom is only starting to enjoy life's simple pleasures at this age (after raising all of us) and we hope we can get any help that you can provide to extend her years.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers. We appreciate every peso and every message of support and comfort.

Aside from donating through the GoFundMe page, we also accept offline donations by transferring money directly to a bank account:

For donations in Philippine Peso:

Name: Arcelyn Z Cuartero
Bank: BDO Unibank, Savings Account
Branch: Waltermart Sucat
Account Number: 002100204242 up

Name: Ricca Z Cuartero

Bank: BPI, Savings

Account Number: 8269130483

We will update this page daily. Feel free to contact us via email at [email protected]

We send you our deepest gratitude, thank you so much for your support.

Seven
how many your passion, how many your hope
how many the lives you have gone through the rope
seven times a hundred, times a thousand, times million multiplied
created seven lifetimes that will always be by your side