Please help us raise money for our Dad's surgery

Who this will help

Hi, my name is Vanessa Caamaño and I, along with my 4 siblings are fundraising money to pay for our father's imminent ER surgery and cover rising ICU costs, that the insurance he has is declining to cover entirely.

My father's name is Rodrigo Caamaño, he lives in Guayaquil, Ecuador, a third-world country where basic needs such as safety and health care are hard to come by.

He is a loving, generous man who has given everything he has ever owned to his family. He was once a wealthy man, who took care of and offered financial help to those in need, especially his loved ones. His generosity is something we can all learn from and I am honored to be writing this and begin a fundraiser in his name.

The picture below is of my dad (left) and brother (right) last week on December 24th.

This past December 25th, very early in the morning around 3 am, Rodrigo called his eldest son Gonzalo, he claimed he felt an agonizing pain around his kidney. He had been up for a couple hours with this pain and begged him to take him to the ER.

When they arrived to the ER, there weren't any doctors available, since it was just past Christmas Eve and the middle of the night in a sketchy part of the city.

He shortly became delusional from his racking pain that the nurses eventually gave him morphine to ease his discomfort. It was very difficult waking up on Christmas Day to these news and knowing our dad had been going through this for nearly 6 hours and still the hospital couldn't locate a doctor to come examine him.

Around noon, they were finally able to locate a doctor and my father was diagnosed with severe pancreatitis, a chronic kidney infection, and gallbladder stones which were blocking his biliar duct. He was shortly admitted into the ICU due to the severity of his conditions but was unable to receive the emergency surgery due to his weak vital signs from the chronic infection. He is currently being fed through a tube in his nasal passage and is very weak.

The doctor has recommended keeping him in the ICU with antibiotics to stabilize his infection and fever for 7 days minimum and then seeing his eligibility for the surgery which alone costs $18,000. His insurance is labeling his condition as "pre-existing", which is absolutely false. My brother has gathered 4 medical evaluations, which all claim that this is not a pre-existing condition, but still, the insurance's auditor is claiming it as "pre-existing" based off a hernia removal he had 3 years ago.

So in light of the holidays, my brother, sisters, and I ask you to please help in any way you can.

Whether its a donation, sharing this story, or just keeping Rodrigo in your thoughts and prayers. Anything counts and we will all be forever grateful to you.

Happy Holidays.