My sister's Cancer battle

Hello everyone, my name is Emiliann Colmenares, I am a Venezuelan woman living in the U.K.

I have story i would like to share with you. In order for you to understand how complex this situation is, it is important for me to explain to you a few things about my country, Venezuela.

Venezuela is a country situated in South America, between Colombia, Brazil and Guyana.

Learn more about Venezuela's crisis here.

Due to this crisis it is very hard to find any type of medicine within the country, there is a 85 percent shortage of medicine amid an economic crisis also marked by hyperinflation and food scarcity. If you have luck and you do find any medicines you need they are incredibly expensive, so for a person that lives and works in Venezuela it is impossible to afford. People have to choose between buying food or medicine.

Learn more about Venezuela's Health Care System crisis.

Learn more about Venezuela's food scarcity.

My sister's diagnosis

Above is my sister's diagnosis (In spanish).

On May 10th of 2018 my 22 year old cousin sister, Uriana Rodriguez, was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) III B. Learn more about Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Giving my sister's circumstances she chose to stop dental school to save money to be able to pay for her medical care.

My sister's treatment plan

Venezuela's oncologists administer agreed to treat my cousin once she's found her chemotherapy medicines. She would need at least 8 chemotherapy cycles, while this would be the minimum, it is not the ideal treatment plan.

We looked everywhere throughout the country and as expected, we had no luck. We were heartbroken and hopeless.

We are striving to fundraise at least 25k, this would only be to pay for the medicines she needs in order to start her chemotherapies. We are working hard and trying our best to pay out of our own pocket for things like hospital visits, tests, trip to Colombia and back (as they do not send the medicines to Venezuela because of the country's crisis), other illnesses (as she was just diagnosed with pneumonia and we are not able to find the antibiotics she needs) and any other obstacles that might come our way.

This is the list of medicines she needs. This list is priced in Colombian Pesos, do not confuse with USD.

Etoposide 100mg needs 48 of them.

Doxorubicin 50mg needs 8 of them.

Cyclophosphamide 500mg needs 24 of them.

Vincristine 2mg needs 16 of them.

Rituximab 500 mg needs 8 of them and 100mg needs 16 of them.

We would really appreciate if you could help us save my sister's life. Every little bit counts and every prayer counts and she is the string that holds our beautiful family together.