Carol Savage

CAROL NEEDS YOUR HELP!

My sister Carol has recently been diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Disease (IPD) which causes progressive scarring on her lungs and prevents normal airflow. In other words, she has extreme difficulty breathing even on oxygen and will require a lung transplant to live. This disease affects about 200,000 people in the US each year, there is no cure, and it’s unclear what causes it. Without a transplant, the expected life expectancy is between 2 and 5 years from the date of diagnosis.

Carol is my third sibling to develop this condition. One of our brothers had a successful transplant several years ago and is doing well; however, our other brother recently passed away in part from this disease that went undiagnosed until it was too late.

Carol is a loving single parent and devoted grandmother who loves spending time with her family. She has always led an active life, eats healthy, and never smoked. She is an avid community volunteer who does what she can to help others.

Carol’s lung disease is aggressive and can’t be stopped. She spent the last year in isolation because getting COVID would be a death sentence. Carol is on oxygen 24 hours a day. Even with this, any movement including walking is extremely difficult. Even the simplest of tasks can be challenging and take far longer to accomplish! Just walking a few houses down the block could take her 20 minutes or more and simple household tasks like vacuuming or making a bed is virtually impossible.

Carol is currently undergoing final testing to determine her priority on the transplant list. Part of her survival and qualification for the transplant includes assessing her ability to honor the lung donor by successfully supporting the expensive post-transplant recovery demands. Once all tests are completed and details set, she may be called at a moment’s notice to go to the hospital to get her new lung(s).

The transplant is a complicated recovery process that requires months of dedicated support from several caregivers who are required to co-locate with Carol within a few minutes of the hospital in case of emergency. The transplant hospital is downtown in the heart of Chicago where temporary housing and parking will run several hundred dollars each day. Temporary housing and parking for a week will cost more than most people’s monthly mortgage. After the transplant, Carol must continue an expensive regimen of anti-rejection medication for the rest of her life. Unfortunately, Medicare won’t cover things like housing and other long-term medical care needs and only partial coverage on medications.

Carol’s social worker estimates she will need at least $50,000 to help with uncovered expenses. Carol’s limited income is through Social Security since she can’t work. Without adequate funds to support recovery, she may not be eligible for the transplant.

We, the family and friends of Carol Savage are raising money through the non-profit Help Hope Live to fund uninsured medical expenses associated with transplantation.

Your gift in honor of Carol is 100% tax-deductible (unlike GoFundMe) and is also fully eligible for any matching gift programs your employer might have. You should also know that Help Hope Live can accept gifts of appreciated stock or IRA rollover gifts, both of which can have serious tax advantages for you. If you have any questions (including questions about employer matching gifts and gifts of stock/ IRA rollovers), Help Hope Live has a great FAQ page here.

Contributors can be sure donations will be used to pay or reimburse medical and transplant-related expenses.

Please help Carol with the gift of life and breath! To make a tax-deductible donation to this fundraising campaign, click on the GIVE button. And please consider sharing her page on your social media platforms.

For more information, please contact Help Hope Live at 800.642.8399.

Thank you for your support!