Germaine's Battle

My cousin (far left) passed away at the young age of 40. I am making this fundraiser on behalf of his wife, Larabeth. Here's their story:

It is with deep sadness and a profound sense of loss that I share with you the life of my late husband, Germaine Arcalas.

Last year, on a Saturday morning of April, my husband and I had some drinks at home to relax from a tiring week of work. He started throwing up and was complaining about a headache for almost the whole day, which we thought was just a hangover.

The next day, we brought him to Urgent Care and was advised that it was a severe migraine. His headache had gone worst that night. I brought him to the nearest hospital the next morning, but because of the pandemic, I wasn’t allowed to go with him inside.

I waited outside for an hour, then he called me and said, “They found a ruptured vein in my brain, I’ll call you again later."

I tried calling him back several times, but he didn't answer. After half an hour, the hospital let me in and was advised that his head was bleeding and he needed to be transported to Brooklyn Hospital for immediate brain surgery.

The surgery went well.

But my husband stayed in the ICU for a month because he suffered complications two weeks after the surgery. As soon as he got cleared from Brooklyn Hospital, he was then

transferred to Kessler Inpatient Rehab in Saddlebrook and stayed there for 34 days.

It was in God’s grace that he was able to talk again, walk again and do most of the daily living activities. He was even invited to join Kessler’s Success Story because he really had a great transformation throughout the course of his therapies.

Two weeks after getting discharged from Kessler, he had his first seizure. He was rushed to the nearest hospital via ambulance. That incident made his left side weaker than normal. He went on both home therapies and outpatient therapies, which had improved his mobility.

He had a few more seizure episodes until January of this year. Around March 2022, his seizure doctor gave him the clearance to go with the untreated aneurysm surgery, which was found last year. That procedure was completed in September 2022.

Again, the surgery went well.

From the time my husband was able to perform most of the daily living activities, he tried so hard to help me with the household chores. He went with me to do laundry, helped our two sons take baths, put out garbage every day, watch and feed our 4-month-old son, wash dishes, vacuum cleaning, and some other easy chores.

On October 11, 2022, when we were about to sleep, he started showing symptoms of seizures. I called his brother, who lives a few blocks away, and when he came, Germaine was half awake, but was not responding due to seizure attacks that he was having.

We called 911, and when we got to the hospital, we were advised that they found bleeding inside his head. He was then transferred to Hackensack University Medical Center via helicopter for immediate brain surgery. When I arrived at the hospital, I was advised that the neurosurgeon and his medical team wanted to talk to me.

I didn't know what I should feel at that moment, but I was so scared because it’s the same feeling I had last year. The doctor then told me that his brain hemorrhage had spread out so quick that they can’t do anything to reverse it and that my husband can pass anytime soon.

I started making phone calls to his family and all of them came to see him. We never had a chance to talk to him again after he was rescued by the 911 ambulance.

He passed away on the morning of October 13, 2022.

I know that God has his reason for why this happened. For whatever reason that is, I lift everything to Him and Trust Him that He will be with us on this new journey.

It will be very difficult for me to move on to this new chapter of our lives especially that he left me with our three children: Gabriel, 8 years old, Angelo, 7 years old and Zachariel, 4 months old.

I am reaching out to all our families and friends with a kind heart to help us get through this by sending us prayers as well as financial support to cover funeral expenses.