LD26019: Cancer torments an old father, daughter exhausted in a house about to collapse

Exhausted at bedside of an old man

We went to the last house in the neighborhood in a sunny afternoon. The small dirt road closed in front of Mr. Nguyen Thanh Thao's house in Phu Quoi hamlet, Hung Khanh Trung commune, Vinh Long province, which was severely degraded, with cracked walls, low humid floor, and a strong, smelly space.

For more than ten years, Mr. Thao has been almost committed to a hospital bed due to poor health. The real disaster came in October 2025, when severe abdominal pain and prolonged digestive disorders made him exhausted. The conclusion from the hospital stunned the whole family: rectal cancer, forced to undergo chemotherapy if she wanted to keep hope of prolonging her life.

However, in that empty house, money for treatment is a distant thing. Lying on the old bed, Mr. Thao exclaimed: "I have enough to live to this age, I only blame Lieu. Every poor family or sick person pushes their children to the end. Why not have chemicals for money....

The eyes of the 70-year-old man were dirty, both enduring physical pain and the torment of a father who knew he was becoming a burden.

Chemotherapy costs are too high

Mrs. Nguyen Thi Bich Lieu (born in 1976) is the daughter who lives with and takes care of her father. With no stable job, no one hired her to do anything: weeding, washing dishes, fixing the temperature... to have money to buy rice and painkillers for her father.

With a weak face after long nights of staying up all night, Mrs. Lieu choked up as the doctor ordered her father to have at least 8 more chemotherapy sessions if he was healthy enough. Each time she spends tens of millions of dong - the amount of money that she never dares to think of as a fortune.

"My mother passed away more than 20 years ago also because she was poor and had no money for treatment. Now that I have come to my father... I have borrowed from everywhere, but everyone is as poor as me, now there is really nowhere to turn to," Ms. Lieu burst into tears.

Everyone around her was heartbroken by Mr. Thao and his son's situation. Ms. Sau Mai, who lives next to the house, said: "Mr. Thao's family has been poor for many years. The neighbors are also poor, we can only contribute rice and some medicine. Seeing the scene of a rich rich man without money for treatment, who would not be affected, said Ms. Mai.

Mr. Huynh Thanh Au - Chairman of the Hung Khanh Trung Commune Red Cross Society - said that the whole commune has 87 poor households, 140 near-poor households; Mr. Thao's family is classified as near-poor, while the cost of cancer treatment exceeds the local support capacity. "We hope that through the press and benefactors, we will pay attention and join hands to support Mr. Thao so that he can continue to receive treatment and prolong his life," Mr. Au shared.

Leaving the house at the end of the village when it was dark, the image of a thin daughter holding a prescription and standing still next to her old father's bed still haunted us. A life that is gradually shortening is not because of no hope, but because there is no money to treat the disease.

Please send any help to LD26019's life to the Golden Heart Charity Fund - 51 Hang Bo, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi. Account number (STK) 113000000758 at Vietinbank Hoan Kiem Branch, Hanoi; Contact number: 0021000303088 - at Vietcombank Hanoi Branch; Contact number: 12410001122556 - at BIDV Hoan Kiem Branch.

Or contact directly Ms. Nguyen Thi Bich Lieu, Hung Khanh Trung commune, Vinh Long province. Or by phone number: 0975.013.748

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