As the boat motored north across the Straits of Florida, the last traces of Cuba disappeared over the horizon.
Lazaro Blanco watched as his homeland faded out of view. Faced with poverty, economic uncertainty and the crushing Communist regime of Fidel Castro, he joined thousands of his fellow Cubans fleeing for a better life.
He had to leave behind his family, his friends and everything that he had known. Thirty-seven years have passed, and Blanco has not seen his homeland since.
“It’s only 90 miles from Key West, and I haven’t been able to see them,” he said. “It’s more than hard; it tears me apart.”
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryBlanco, 59, has been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer that has spread throughout his body. His oncologist has told him there is nothing else that medicine can do for him, and he’s started palliative hospice care in his home.
He’s dying, and he has accepted that. But before he goes, his last wish is to return to the sunny shores of Cuba to live out his remaining days.
The hope is that with the help of crowd-sourcing, and with assistance from a team of social workers here in central Indiana, Blanco will see home one more time.
“If I didn’t leave, I don’t know where I would be. I might be in jail, I might be killed. I don’t know. But I’m going back with faith that everything is going to be alright,” he said. “That’s not an easy decision, but I have to do it with faith. I want to be back in my country with my family, and that will be my final resting place. That’s my wish.”
Blanco arrived in the U.S. on May 5, 1980. He and a wave of other Cuban refugees came into the port at Key West, Florida, in what became known as the Mariel boatlift.
With Cuba’s economy ailing, houses and jobs were extremely hard to find. After an incident where refugees poured into the Peruvian embassy in Havana, Castro agreed to open the port of Mariel to anyone who wanted to leave and could find transportation.
Between April 15 and Oct. 31, 1980, more than 125,000 Cubans flooded into Florida.
Like the others distancing themselves from Castro’s reign, Blanco wanted one thing: “Freedom,” he said.
Blanco was 23 years old at the time. He didn’t know any of the other Cubans in Key West and had no contacts in the U.S. He was herded into a government camp that had been set up for the other refugees and was living out of a tent for months.
He was completely alone.
Government officials had arranged a sponsor for Blanco, who would help him obtain Social Security cards and identification, as well as assist in assimilating into American culture. Though Blanco did receive his official paperwork, the money that had been provided by the government to help him get a place to live and establish himself was embezzled by his sponsor.
“I didn’t know anything. I didn’t speak English, I didn’t know anything about America. So I decided to leave Florida and go to Mobile, Alabama,” he said.
The following years were filled with tumult for Blanco. He found work in the shipyards in Mobile before losing that job.
Blanco admits that this was a dark time of his life. He moved throughout the country, from Alabama to Texas to California. He was arrested for stealing cars in California and ended up in prison.
“Because of the lack of knowledge I had about America, I was desperate to survive, since I didn’t have any money,” he said. “Coming to a place where you know nothing about it, you have no one to guide you, I have to do everything on my own.”
After his release from prison, he was sent to Detroit, Michigan, to live in a halfway home on house arrest. At the time, Blanco connected with other Cuban refugees living in the city, which gave him a sense of community that he had been missing since arriving in the U.S.
But soon, he also became addicted to drugs. His life spiraled downward for five years, until he was living on the streets, homeless.
“I had nowhere to go and no one to support me,” he said. “I had a lot of depression, and was just going to give up. I couldn’t find a way out.”
A chance encounter with a church doing evangelical work in Detroit changed his life. The message of the preachers struck Blanco; he was inspired to be saved by God, committing himself to the church and vowing to give up drugs.
That was 18 years ago, and he’s been sober ever since.
“I’ve been saved. Completely drug free — no drugs, no cigarettes, no alcohol, nothing like that,” he said.
The church had been working in Detroit but was based in Indianapolis. So Blanco came back with them to Indiana and dedicated himself to his faith. He found work doing maintenance, and moved into his own apartment.
“My life wasn’t the best that it could be, but it was better than it was. I was saved, I wasn’t using drugs, I was working,” he said.
But in 2005, Blanco was faced with another overwhelming obstacle. Doctors found a tumor on his prostate. He had to have the organ removed, and though the surgery was initially thought to be successful, tests revealed cancer cells were in his bloodstream.
Scans and additional tests did not reveal where the cancerous cells had originated, so he was put on a drug called Lupron to manage his hormones and control the cancer growth.
At the same time, Blanco’s refugee status interfered with his treatment. He had never become a U.S. citizen, though he was living in the country legally as a refugee. Because of his citizenship, he lost his insurance, and as his medical bills grew, he had to stop taking the hormone therapy.
“With my frustration and things I was going through with my family, I said I was giving up,” he said.
Without medication to keep his cancer at bay, Blanco started getting more and more ill. His faltering health forced him to reconsider medical help, and he searched out another doctor who might be able to help him with treatment and better insurance.
He found that person in Dr. Pablo Bedano, who first started treating him in 2011. At the time, Bedano was a medical oncologist at Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital, though he’s since transferred to Community Hospital South and Community Hospital East.
Bedano ran tests and further investigated Blanco’s cancer. Social workers assigned to Blanco helped him enroll in Medicaid, which covered his treatments.
“He’s fought this hard. Since 2011, he’s gone through many, many treatments: radiation, physical therapy, hormone therapy, surgeries to fight the cancer and to stay alive,” Bedano said. “But he’s more and more diminished as time goes on.”
Unfortunately, the increased care came too late. The cancer had spread to his spine and to his skull, and was later discovered in his lungs. It has progressed to the point where there is little left to do, Bedano said.
“He’s had this diagnosis for a long time, so we’ve gone through many lines of treatment with him,” he said. “Now, we’re coming to a point where we don’t have many options for him.”
Blanco suffers from severe nausea and abdominal pain, and has lost more than 60 pounds in the past three months. He weight now fluctuates between 140 and 150 pounds.
“They are doing all they can to help me, but it’s getting pretty close to being over,” he said.
Jan Kelsey, an oncology nurse at Community Hospital East, has been one of several nurses to care for Blanco for the past six months. During that time, he has gotten to know his patient as an insightful, genuine and kind man who has faced his disease in a matter-of-fact way.
“When someone receives a cancer diagnosis, they’re going to react in several different ways. There’s shock, there’s panic, there’s denial, anger, sadness. Since I’ve met him, he carries himself with a tremendous amount of acceptance and grace,” Kelsey said.
Doctors have given Blanco less than a year to live. That has sparked his desire to return to Cuba.
Because of the embargo between the U.S. and Cuba, Blanco has to go through a fraught bureaucratic process with the State Department and the Cuban Consulate in Washington, D.C.
The trip will also cost $15,000, including paperwork costs, travel expenses and his medical care.
“In reality, I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough due to my condition to do these things. But I will try,” he said. “I’ve been living in America for 37 years, and I really believe that when it comes to a time of need, Americans find a way to help.”
One of Blanco’s close friends put together a GoFundMe page to help raise the money.
If he’s able to arrange the trip, Blanco will live with his sister. Part of the funds he raises would help her as well, to pay for the burden of adding another person to her household.
“I’d like to have something to contribute once I get to see them. I need to have something to help to my last day,” he said.
Bedano has worked to stabilize Blanco’s health from a medical standpoint, so that he can make the journey back to Cuba. He is taking numerous medications to help lessen the nausea and reduce the pain that he’s experiencing.
All aggressive treatments have stopped, and Blanco’s medical team has put together a nutrition plan to help him gain back some of the weight he lost and gain strength.
Social workers through Community Health Network have also been working to help him navigate the funding challenges of the trip.
“He’s a very good person. Obviously, he’s had to overcome a lot of adversity when he came to this country as a refugee. He really had to struggle to find his way, and now, for the last five years, he’s been struggling with this cancer without many resources,” Bedano said. “I really hope he can be home to be with his family at the end of his life.”
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How to help
What: Lazaro Blanco, an Indianapolis resident and Cuban refugee, has been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. Doctors gave him less than a year to live. He hopes to raise enough money to return to Cuba, to be with the family that he hasn’t seen in 37 years.
Goal: To raise $15,000 for the trip
What for: The money will help with the paperwork and permits needed for him to travel to Cuba, as well as a flight and money to pay for his health care needs once there.
How to help: A GoFundMe page has been set up at www.gofundme.com/reunite-man-wfamily-after-37yrs
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