Karen Love

Our beloved Karen desperately needs your help.

Karen Love, or Lovey to her five grandchildren, suffered a severe heart attack on June 20, 2021. She miraculously survived this heart attack and began the long road towards recovery. At first, it seemed like she was making good strides; she was able to go back to her work at a desk job and began cardiac rehab. But as the fall progressed, she started having a hard time walking into work and began noticing other symptoms. A battle with bronchitis forced her to stop her rehab, and she continued to feel worse and worse. At the beginning of December, her doctors performed an MRA test on her and found that her heart’s ejection fraction was at 16% on the left side and that as a result, the right side of her heart was beginning to show increased damage. Then, at the beginning of January 2022, Karen went in for a cardiac catheterization, where the doctors determined that her heart had been damaged beyond repair and that her cardiac output is currently less than 50% to her main organs. They told her and her family that her only choice is a heart transplant. We are asking family and friends to join us in fundraising for the nonprofit Help Hope Live to help with critical expenses Karen will face immediately after surgery and in the year that follows.

For those of you who know Karen, you will remember that she beat breast cancer a decade ago, and she has gone on to work and be invested in the lives of her family and friends. She became better known as Lovey with the arrival of her first grandchild in 2015, and she now has five grandchildren who will tell you that Lovey is the best at playing Legos, hide-and-seek, and baby dolls…not to mention all the extra treats she so willingly hands out! When her doctors realized the extent of damage to her heart, they were shocked that she has been able to continue working for as long as she has since her return to work this past fall. She has already worked so hard and has a very long road ahead of her. She needs those who love her to help carry some of the burden.

She is not able to work at this time and has been told she will most likely need to stay out of work for at least a year following the transplant. While she does have insurance, she has to meet her deductible along with many unexpected expenses that are not covered in this transplant journey. She will have to pay for medications out of pocket every month and numerous trips to Duke after her transplant to keep a close eye on her new heart.

Donations to Help Hope Live can help ease the financial burden of a transplant and allow Karen to focus on a healthy recovery and many years ahead with her children and grandchildren.