Sascha Wil­son

Af­ter strug­gling to raise funds and suc­cess­ful­ly un­der­go­ing a bone mar­row trans­plant in In­dia, Zelia Castel­lo still needs help.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Castel­lo, a Mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer, ex­plained the pro­ce­dure was done in De­cem­ber, but she was un­aware that she would have to do fol­low-up chemother­a­py treat­ments.

How­ev­er, her dilem­ma is that the type of chemother­a­py rec­om­mend­ed for her is not avail­able in Trinidad and the to­tal course is cost­ing US$100,000.

Di­ag­nosed with Hodgkins Lym­phoma, the 27-year-old moth­er of one left last Oc­to­ber for In­dia to do the pro­ce­dure which was most­ly fund­ed through the do­na­tions.

She un­der­went chemother­a­py which sent her in­to re­mis­sion and the bone mar­row trans­plant done at For­tis Memo­r­i­al Re­search In­sti­tute.

She ex­plained, “I was of the opin­ion that I would’ve been re­turn­ing home the sec­ond week in Jan­u­ary, on­ly to be told that I wouldn’t be able to leave un­less I pur­chase 16 cy­cles of the said chemo that was used to send me in­to re­mis­sion, main­ly be­cause it is not avail­able in Trinidad.”

Castel­lo said two weeks ago she paid US$7,000 for the first cy­cle and the sec­ond cy­cle is due next week, but her funds are de­plet­ed.

“It’s the same chemo that sent me in­to re­mis­sion that they will con­tin­ue us­ing be­cause that is the on­ly chemo that had a re­sponse on my body. We did not cater for that, we had al­ready stopped fund-rais­ers.”

She pro­vid­ed a copy of the in­voice from the hos­pi­tal which stat­ed that the to­tal cost of the 16 cy­cles was $112,000.

Castel­lo does not have the mon­ey to pur­chase the chemother­a­py, but the hos­pi­tal is hes­i­tant to dis­charge her with­out it.

“The hos­pi­tal don’t want to send me back be­cause that chemo is trans­port­ed on ice. If it is shipped to Trinidad it will take six weeks to get here and by that time the drug will not be able to be used. It must stay cold. Nor­mal­ly they will give the pa­tient a per­mit to trav­el on the flight with it, so you could go home with it. Now that I am faced with this, that comes with ex­pens­es. The longer I am here more rent I have to pay, I still have to buy food. I still have to go to hos­pi­tal to do tests, blood work. So it will be more than the US $112,000,” she said.

Grate­ful and thank­ful to every­one who con­tributed al­most $200,000 to­wards her pro­ce­dure, Castel­lo said, “I am just ask­ing per­sons who can as­sist, please help me. I just want to come back home,” she said.

Any­one who wants to do­nate can use this ac­count, Zelia Chris­tiana Castel­lo FCB act # 2283611

(Sav­ings), or https://go­fund.me/2d91dc9d