- Mum told son to ‘go on’ with wedding after heart attack
- Family say their battler mother hid health struggles
An Australian couple are scrambling to scrape together money for a mother’s surgery after she endured a heart attack at her son’s wedding.
Danline Faye Canutal and her groom Gian Biduare had travelled to the Phillipines from Australia to celebrate their wedding with family in 2022.
However, the festivities took a dramatic turn when Mr Biduare’s 59-year-old mother Joy started coughing and clenching her fists, 7News reported.
Despite the family’s protests, Joy tried to insist her son and bride continue the wedding.
‘I’m okay you guys just go on… it’s your wedding day,’ she told them.
Finally, the family convinced her to go to hospital where doctors informed ‘Mama Joy’ she was suffering a heart attack.
Joy was told three different heart valves were damaged and that she required an angioplasty in order to open her blocked arteries — a surgery that would reportedly cost $25,000.
Ms Faye Cunatal revealed that financial restraints had stopped the mother from receiving the surgery at the time.
Gian Biduare’s (left) mother (right) had a heart attack during her son’s wedding celebrations
‘Mama Joy’ now faces serious complications after she had to delay costly life-saving surgeries
She continued to battle her problems in silence when the couple returned to NSW as newlyweds, despite her body ‘shutting down’.
Her family claim her condition has spiralled over the following years and that she desperately needs the surgery.
‘Since then, Mama Joy hasn’t been the same. We are slowly losing our happy and driven mama,’ Ms Faye Cunatal wrote in a GoFundMe.
‘You can see in her eyes, she is really worried even though she doesn’t tell us.’
The financial burden has fallen upon Mr Biduare as he is the oldest sibling, unable to secure support from his brother.
Joy is at risk of suffering a further, possibly-fatal, heart attack if she doesn’t receive an angiogram and potentially three stents in her heart.
The stents could cost $13,000 each.
While Joy is a Filipino national with health insurance, the family say it would only cover five to ten per cent of the cost.
‘I am knocking on your good hearts to help us with Mama Joy’s much-needed procedure,’ Ms Faye Cunatal said.
