Grandfather passed away this morning, need $ for funeral

–I APOLOGIZE FOR THE LENGTH–

My grandfather passed away this morning at 5:30am in Saint Michael’s Medical Center in Newark, NJ.  His name is Gus Ferro.  He worked hard all his life in a steel factory until he was diagnosed with emphysema when he was 62 and was forced into early retirement a few years ago.  He had no life insurance, medicaid, 401k, etc. so all funeral arrangements(or lack thereof right now) will all be out of our pockets.  It’s a small family and we too are feeling the effects of the crappy economy right now.

He was diagnosed with prostate cancer about 2.5 years ago.  He was started on radiation treatment for it when they inserted the radiation pellets into his prostate.  He was doing good and was in remission but recently has turned for the worst. 

He went to the doctor a few weeks ago and he lost 18lbs.  He’s retired, had arthritis with his legs, and never really left his home so he didn’t really get any exercise.  The weight loss was a big red flag.  Additionally, he had no appetite, had a hard time falling asleep, yet he never complained about pain.  But he would limp around and groan when sitting/standing, etc. whenever asked what’s wrong he would reply with something to the extent of oh nothing just leave me alone.  Just to give a quick time line

Tuesday my grandmother finally convinced him to go to the hospital because he almost collapsed trying to get out of the bedroom.  They sat in the ER for 6 hours, went in at 12pm, and was admitted at around 6pm and they started doing tests on him and noticed he was a bit yellow skinned.  Additionally he had very high blood pressure(182/109) and a fast heart rate.(130+ bpm)  After a couple of days of testing(and medication to try and regulate his blood pressure), they did a CAT scan thursday afternoon and found a mass on his liver.

Thursday night he was doing okay, was sitting up in the bed, poured his own coffee, sugar, milk, etc.  Didn’t like the dinner they brought in except for the macaroni & cheese which he ate.  Visiting hours ended at 10pm so we were going to go back the next day.

Friday morning, got a phone call from the hospital.  They were rushing him to the ICU because he passed out.  After further examination of his CAT scans, they found more masses.  On his lungs, liver, 3 on his brain which were bleeding internally, and his bones.  In other words, it spread everywhere.  The 3 on his brain that were bleeding explained the high blood pressure, his body was trying to compensate.

He pretty much went into a coma at that point and was heavily sedated.  They put him on Fentalyn, which after we googled, wikipedia said its used on cancer patients and is 80 times stronger than morphine.

Since then, we’ve been visiting him non stop all weekend long.  Like I said, no life insurance, 401k, nothing, it’s all up to the family and we’re a small family.  We WOULD like to have an open casket viewing at bare minimum for the funeral service but as of right now we put together enough funds just for the cremation which is about $1000.  The funeral homes pretty much wont do an open casket(obviously) without embalming first.  This plus the 2 hour funeral service & casket renting gets expensive.  Pickup from hospital + embalming + casket rental + 2 hour funeral service + cremation is about $6000.  So far we’ve put together $1000.

I’m posting this in every forum I have an account on and every chat room that I’m a regular in practically begging for any help for us to go through with this.  Believe me when I say it’s hard to swallow.  So PLEASE, any donations will be greatly appreciated, even if it’s just $5, $10, or $20.  My paypal address is compaholic@gmail.com

THANK YOU