Liz’s Story
Liz Espinosa dropped out of high school to care for her newborn son. At age 20, struggled to find work as a single mother beyond sporadic employment in house cleaning and odd jobs. Her mother fell sick from anemia and became depressed, while coexisting with an abusive alcoholic husband. So Liz invited her mother to move in with her. As the situation became increasingly complicated, Liz knew she needed to find additional work to support her family. Skip forward four years. Liz was now providing for her family but then started to lose her vision.
Knowing that she would not get the help at the government hospital, she knocked on the door of another nonprofit medical care organization in Oaxaca. Unfortunately, it was the wrong door, as they misdiagnosed her for stigmatism and recommended, she purchase glasses, and everything would be okay.
It turned out that what she had was a blot clot and a tumor that were putting pressure on her optic nerve. It would require the work of a neurosurgeon. In a matter of weeks or months, she would have gone blind. As the sole caretaker of her mother and 10-year old son, it would have had devastating impacts on their quality of life. While La Clinica del Pueblo does not perform the sophisticated brain surgery required, Tash’s Director was able to identify a qualified specialist and Tash was able to cover the cost through La Clinica. We understand that Tash cannot help everybody. But we hope you are inspired by this testimonial of another low-income single mother who has proven that she, like many others, will never give up, and will take advantage of these unique opportunities.
