- Writing
- BBC News World
image source, Instagram Sergio Vega
Sergio Vega and Paula Durán are requesting a humanitarian visa so that their parents can reach the United States.
The US authorities granted a humanitarian visa to the parents of Paula Durán, a young Colombian woman who was diagnosed with terminal cancer when she was going to give birth to her third child in the state of California.
The news was announced on Tuesday by Colombian congresswoman Saray Robayo -who accompanied the process- through a Twitter message in which she also thanked both the US embassy in Bogotá and the Colombian Foreign Ministry for their efforts. made in this case.
In the final stretch of her third pregnancy, Paula, her husband Sergio Vega, and their two daughters, They found out that the dizziness and discomfort that the 27-year-old Colombian attributed to pregnancy were actually due to a tumor.
A cancer that would soon become metastatic.
After doctors gave Durán a month to live, the couple asked the US government to grant humanitarian visas to their parents so they could accompany her to her home in Concord, Northern California, the time that remains.
“We need that affection,” Vega said on the networks, from which he has launched a campaign with that objective.
Colombian media said Paula’s parents are expected to arrive in the US sometime this week.
image source, Instagram Sergio Vega
Juan José was born by emergency caesarean section. At 24 hours he was already breathing on his own.
The diagnosis and the worst news
Things started to get complicated in the 34th week of pregnancy, at the end of the eighth month.
Al stomach pain was added to the headacheand constant dizziness and vomiting.
After a series of comings and goings to the doctor, and in view of the fact that her health was worsening at times — “she was almost vegetal” —, on November 28, Vega rushed her to the hospital.
“I took her at 8 in the morning, they did all the pertinent studies and at 11 at night they gave us the tragic news that she had a four centimeter brain tumor“, says the Colombian in his networks.
From that moment the events precipitated.
She was immediately transferred to another clinic, John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek, where the following day she underwent an emergency caesarean section and gave birth to a healthy baby.
“That November 29, at 11 in the morning, Juan José gave us a great message: that we fight for life, because despite the adversity in which he found himself, he was born.” At 24 hours he was already breathing on his own.
The next day she underwent surgery and they removed part of the tumor.
The couple thought about returning to Colombia immediately after the intervention and before starting the radiology and chemotherapy treatment — “we know that they are quite strong procedures that wear the person down” — but the doctors advised against it.
They still had another announcement to make, the worst of all: cancer had made metastasis and had spread to other organs.
“I just had a meeting with all the doctors. They gave me news that broke my heartIt totally ripped my heart apart. It’s the worst news I’ve ever received in my life,” Vega says in a video posted on Jan. 7.
“Now medically in the hospital they are not going to do anything else. They gave him one month of life to my wife”.
The next day she was transferred to her home in the San Francisco Bay Area and has remained there ever since. in bed, under the care of her husband and the attention of a nurse giving you pain medication.
And daily, through his Instagram account, Vega keeps his followers up to date on how his wife is evolving.
Now he hopes to be able to show the reunion with his parents.
