As some of you may know, when Anya was just a year old she was diagnosed with Restrictive Cardiomyopathy (RI), the same hereditary illness that her father died from in 2010. In December 2013, almost exactly three years after her father’s death, we told that the inevitable time had come and Anya was in need of a heart transplant. She is now on the active transplant waiting list at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida.

Because Anya has medical insurance, we didn’t expect to have so many uninsured transplant-related expenses such as: co-pays and deductibles, frequent doctor visits, travel (300 miles round trip) and temporary housing for one month to be near the transplant center and the costly immunosuppressant medications that she will need to take for the rest of her life.