Donate to Pau's Continuous Fight Against Aggressive Leukemia

Hi everyone, I’m Paulina. In January of 2024 I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia/blood cancer. I got into remission but unfortunately six months later my leukemia came back and I spent the last month in the hospital. My cancer is very aggressive, so the new treatment in the hospital didn’t work. I’m now being sent far from home for another form of treatment. If you’d like to learn more, please keep reading!

This GoFundMe is to help with my lost income, upcoming travel expenses, food and potential hotel costs (for my husband) for the next 2.5 months, and in any case he may have to take time off to be with me. We’ve met the deductible for our insurance, but we still have to pay a percentage. That also means we'll have ongoing medical bills along with the existing bills from before meeting our deductible.

Since being discharged in February, my chemo treatment consisted of getting 2 shots a day for 5 days on my stomach. That came with painful bruising, itching, and extreme fatigue. Each round became more difficult and painful. I own a small business and did in person events before I was diagnosed. I can no longer do these events because of the fatigue and pain, but also to not risk myself getting sick in a crowded place. Everything financially has fallen on my husband.

On July 15th I had a doctor’s appointment where I was told my counts looked great and was able to take a break from chemo that week. I was going to resume 2 weeks later.

On July 19th I went into the ER for side affects from medication. I was fevering and had body pains. After doing some blood work, they saw that my counts were elevated. They contacted my oncologists and I was transferred to my usual hospital. They ran tests along with a bone marrow biopsy and informed me that my cancer came back. They found an aggressive gene mutation which means my cancer is aggressive.

For the past month I've been in the hospital receiving new and stronger treatment, but my counts weren't looking how they were supposed to. They concluded they were unable to get me into remission again.

So now, my hematologists contacted a doctor from MD Anderson in Houston, TX. He runs studies and has 4 trials that could be good for me, 1 in particular they think may be perfect. This stay alone will be a month and half. If they're able to get me into remission, they may go forward with my bone marrow transplant as a cure. This will extend my stay by another month.

It has taken awhile (and I still don't think I have) to process that my cancer came back anywhere between that Monday and Friday, so quickly. I'm heartbroken that my treatment in the hospital didn't work out for me. I'm trying to be grateful though. I'm thankful I have the opportunity for more treatment, I know not everyone does. This was all unexpected and now having to be so far away from my family, pets, and friends for potentially 2.5 months is dreadful to me.

I'm appreciative for any help, and thank you for reading my story.