Erika Diarte-Carr, a mother of two from Ogden UT has raised approximately $166,000 on GoFundMe to finance her own funeral after a terminal cancer diagnosis.
Carr is dying as she has been battling cancer – specifically small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) for the past couple of years.
As she said on GoFundMe: “On May 7th, 2022, the day before Mother’s Day, I walked into the emergency room due to what I thought to be just a normal shoulder injury and walked out diagnosed with stage 4 terminal cancer…the doctor then proceeded to tell me that there were multiple tumors that had metastasized to other parts of my body including my skeletal, which is how we were able to find the tumor that was causing my shoulder pain. By that point the damage had already been done.”
Carr’s condition became worse in January when she received an additional diagnosis of Cushing Syndrome.
The new diagnosis “caused me so many other underlying issues such as rapid weight gain & swelling (60+ lbs in a matter of weeks), muscle and bone deterioration, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, Moon Face & so much more! This disease has already taken so much away from me and my family!” she said.
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Erika had previously been working, battling cancer and taking care of her two kids all simultaneously but she’s now physically incapable of doing so.
She started her fundraiser to finance her treatment but on September 18th, 2024, she received a terrible prognosis following her doctor’s visit. Erika was given three months to live and is now concentrating on raising money to help her kids – Jeremiah (7) and Aaliyah (5) – when she’s gone and to finance her own funeral.
Her fundraiser has gone insanely viral, touching hearts all over the place and raising a whopping $166,739 at the time of publishing this piece.
One person said in reaction to Erika’s story on social media: Tell me why I just started crying like a baby… Let’s not only give her the funeral she deserves, let’s give her an amazing 3 last months with her babies 😭😭😭 I can’t even process what she’s going through, emotionally and physically.
A Venmo account was also posted by a cousin as some people were not enthused about donating on GoFundMe.