A Utah woman who raised more than a million dollars for her three children after being diagnosed with terminal cancer died on October 11, at age 30, according to her GoFundMe page.
The news of the death of Erika Diarte-Carr, a single mother of a 5-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, was shared by her cousin Ángel Rivera in a post on the social network Facebook.
Diarte-Carr was diagnosed in May 2022 with stage 4 small cell lung carcinoma, a type of “fast-growing cancer that forms in lung tissues,” according to the United States National Cancer Institute.
The woman, from Ogden, Utah, said on GoFundMe that, one day before Mother’s Day that year, she had to be admitted to an emergency hospital for what she believed “was a normal shoulder injury.”
After receiving the diagnosis, he explained that he would never forget the words his doctor told him: “’I hope you have a good support system at home because you are going to need it. You have a long, hard journey ahead of you.’ In that moment, my life, that of my children and everyone around us changed forever.”
As if that were not enough, in January 2023, She was also diagnosed with Cushing’s syndrome.a hormonal disorder that occurs when the body produces too much cortisol, the so-called “stress hormone” by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
“I want to make sure they will be okay.”
Shortly thereafter, Diarte-Carr’s health deteriorated to such an extent that she was unable to work, which, as she explained, became a financial burden on her family. In September, seeing that the medical treatment was not working, he decided to stop it so he could spend more time with his children and family.
Worried and overwhelmed by the future of her little ones, the woman explained that she created the GoFundMe account to tell her story and try to leave something for the children. Although their intention was to raise about $5,000, soon the page went viral and the collection exceeded one million dollars. The money, he assured, would be used for his funeral expenses and to create a trust for his children. “So I can leave something for them and I want to make sure they will be okay when they grow up.”
Just a month ago, Diarte-Carr told KTVX-TV that she was surprised by all the support she had received from friends and strangers. “I never expected many people to help me. “I am very grateful to everyone who has been with me,” she said.
“He fought a long hard battle. She was strong and endured everything she could for her babies,” Rivera said in the Facebook post.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide, according to figures from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, cited by the Lung Cancer Research Foundation.
Approximately 127,070 people die in the United States annually from lung cancer, according to American Cancer Society numbers published by the foundation.
About 654,620 people in the country are diagnosed with lung cancer at some point in their lives.
The number of new lung cancer diagnoses has decreased constantly. That rate has decreased 2.6% annually in men and 1.1% in women.
Likewise, mortality rates have decreased as a likely result of advances in early detection and treatments.
With information from GoFundMe.
