Two days after my father had a stroke, I found out by accident.

I was home that summer, sitting in church, holding my mother’s phone. It vibrated in my hand. A message appeared from a foreign number, the country my father had traveled to.

It said:

“Please comfort the children. The situation is not looking good.”

My mother had hidden the news to protect us and that was the moment everything changed.

At the time, I was studying abroad in Hungary fresh into 3rd year at the Medical University of Pécs. I had returned home for the summer, unaware that my life was about to split into “before” and “after.”

My father never came home after that day he travelled.

For a year, he lived in a hospital bed. He couldn’t speak. He was unconscious. He depended on machines to breathe and feeding tubes to survive. Just a week after he was hospitalized, I had to return to Hungary to continue my studies. The following month was meant to be my white coat ceremony a moment he had promised he would attend. But that never happened. No one from my family could be there. All attention was on keeping him alive.

To this day, walking into the ICU during clinicals is difficult. The sounds of beeping monitors and the sight of critically ill patients takes me back to my father’s bedside, a man who had always been strong, laying helpless and unable to recognize that I was right in front of him.

In 2024, he passed away . The financial strain from his hospitalization meant I could not return home to say my final farewell.

I sat alone in my room in Hungary and watched my father’s funeral live stream online. I remember feeling numb, staring at a screen whilst hearing familiar voices of relatives promising to help my family after his death. Those promises never came. Instead, we were left alone to face the reality of what his year-long hospitalization had cost us.

My father was the sole provider for our family. He paid for my tuition and living expenses in Hungary. After he passed, his estate remained unsettled in court, the estate that previously funded my whole family.

My younger brother had just gained admission into one of his top university choices the same year my father fell ill. He never went. Since 2023, his education has been on hold. This is stressful to wake up to everyday but I know that once I obtain my license this can all change. You have all helped me cancel 2025 tuition debts and I am 100% sure we can cancel 2026 debts together as well. 

I am currently in my sixth year at the Medical University of Pécs, with only 2 semesters left to graduation day , and I have maintained a GPA of 4.7 through this period. Though now, I have reached a point where effort is no longer enough.

Due to unpaid tuition from last semester, I have been denied the access to partake in examinations in the current semester. As a foreign student, this also threatens my student visa and legal stay in Hungary.

I am 10 months away from becoming a doctor.

And I am about to lose everything my father sacrificed for not because I failed, but because I cannot afford to continue.

I still hear his voice in my head after every small achievement,

“You’re my hero. Well done, Abi. A champion doctor in the making.”

I am asking for help so I can finish what he started.

I need:

$10 000 USD to partake in medical practices and complete final year examinations