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Higher Hope Amid Serious Illness |
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It wasn't just the ulcer, the doctor told Isaias Nuñez-Orozco that October day. The endoscopy revealed that the 35-year-old also had stomach cancer. Despair jolted Isaias' thoughts toward his wife, Aida, and their four children. Who would take care of them?
"He's a loving father and husband and was more worried about them at that point," recalls Liza Mapes, an interpreter at Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital. As the family breadwinner, Isaias would rise at 2 a.m. to milk the cows at a dairy farm in Trout Lake, Wash., often working landscaping jobs as well.
When his doctor informed Isaias that surgery offered hope, "then I felt this trust toward the doctor and in God." A wave of relief came when Isaias, who has no insurance, learned that Providence Hood River would cover the costs of his care, including a hospital stay, clinic visits, diagnostic scans, prescriptions and more.
"Everyone here is excellent, and has been kind and helpful," says Isaias, who had surgery in Portland and recently started chemotherapy. A brother is handling the dairy job while Isaias undergoes cancer treatment.
"Once somebody has an illness like this - when you see the support from your family and from the hospital, everything changes," Isaias says. "You just have a higher hope."
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