I cannot imagine how hard it must have been to raise a family of six with a minimum educational background, as a sole provider for the family. I have the privilege of working with so many patients in Cambodia, I get to hear different story, life experiences. Every story is unique. Every day, I am so proud of the work The Max Foundation is doing, touching/saving so many lives. I’m so happy that I am a part of this incredible work. I will let Mr. Mon share his challenges as well as his struggles before he receives the support from Max.
My name is Mon Moeu, I go by “Mon”. I am 45 years old, married and have four children, one boy and three girls. I work as a farmer and work many other kinds of jobs so I can support my family. I hope that one day I have a stable income to support my family and don’t have to worry about our economics.
Being the only person to provide for my family there were so many challenges that I must face because of my sickness. Due to my sickness, I couldn’t do any more work, as a result, two of my children had to drop out of school to look for jobs because I couldn’t support the family anymore. I was devasted to see that my children couldn’t continue their education. The only jobs they could find were working in a factory. I wasn’t proud of that; however, I had no choice but to keep hoping that somehow, I could be well again so I could start taking care of my family once again.
Back in 2015, I started to feel very strange as my stomach was hard as a rock, I couldn’t eat much and often was in pain. I went to the local hospitals for treatment, the result was that my white blood cell was too high, I needed to do more tests to confirm my disease. I couldn’t do it at a local hospital, so I had to come to Phnom Penh to look for a hospital that could diagnose my disease properly, however, nothing helped. Then I went to Calmette Hospital, then I found out that I got Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML). The doctor said that my treatment would cost so much money. Then I started to lose hope, and thought to myself, how could I afford such treatment when I couldn’t provide enough food for my family. I told the doctor there that I was poor and couldn’t’ afford any treatment, and if the doctor knows of any hospitals that could help with my disease, please let me know. Then I got a referral letter to go to Mercy Medical Center (MMC).
I am currently taking Sprycel and it is going well for me. I can eat once again, feel normal and able to do more work so I can continue providing support for my family. This treatment is very important for me and my family because it helps with my health, and I get more energy to focus more on work. Without the treatment, I would never have been able to afford it.
In addition, the transportation support is another huge help for me as it helps me to pay for my travel expenses as well as some food while I travel to the hospital for my follow-up appointment.
Lastly, I am forever grateful for the support for my daughter to continue her study as my two other children had to drop out of school because we couldn’t afford for them to go to school.
“I would like to express gratitude from the bottom of my heart to The Max Foundation for supporting my medication, not only that, but my transportation trip (so I can go for the follow up according to the physician required) and for my daughter’s education. Thank you so much for your kind support!”
“I want to say to other patients that they are going through the same thing as myself, don’t feel hopeless, need to have strength, after treatment for a while they will feel better just as I am.”
Thank you for reading this post, everyone!
The Max Foundation is a leading global health nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating health equity. For 28 years, Max has pioneered practical, scalable, high-quality solutions to bring life-extending treatments and patient-centered health care to more than 100,000 people living with cancer and critical illness in low- and middle-income countries. Max believes in a world where all people can access high-impact medicines, where geography is not destiny, and where everyone can strive for health with dignity and with hope.
For many patients, there aren’t many opportunities for them to learn about their disease directly from experts. So when the opportunity to hear from a hematologist at Naresuan University Hospital in Thailand, we were excited to maximize the event.
I have learned that the pain in the heart and soul is deep and will always be there. The ‘bucket’ has a hole, and even when you dedicate every day of your life to making sure other families don’t have to live with this pain, the bucket will never be filled. I have also learned….
In Latin America, the Maximize Life Campaign has become something like a tradition – a time when each patient organization creates an event or activity of their choice and powers it up for a campaign that takes on a life of its own!
13 patient groups from 11 Latin American countries joined this year’s movement, bringing together patients and caregivers with the purpose of telling the community that cancer is an issue, that ignoring it is not going to make it go away, and that the best approach is to learn about it in order to know what to do about it. From governments to the general public, everybody can get involved in figuring out how to treat cancer patients as members of society and not as a burden.
