Jodi DeMuth

Jodi’s Story:
Jodi is a midwife working in coastal Maine, mother to three adult children, and doting grandmother (a.k.a. “Gram Cracker”) to two active little boys. Jodi was diagnosed with Primary Biliary Cirrhosis (PBC) nearly 23 years ago. PBC is an autoimmune disease that affects the liver and causes excessive and irreversible scarring over time—often resulting in liver failure or the need for a transplant. Early in the course of her disease, Jodi was lucky to team up with Dr. Marshall Kaplan of Tufts Medical Center and settle on a treatment plan that has kept her feeling healthy and living well for a remarkable period of time. In recent years, however, the inevitable progression of the disease has intensified, and medications are no longer sufficient to preserve her limited liver function. As she struggles with fatigue, abdominal inflammation, and severe itchiness, among many other side effects, her ability to truly live her life is diminishing. She and her doctors have determined that a live donor liver transplant is her best option.
Live Donor Transplant is a major surgery with a difficult recovery for both the donor and the recipient, keeping each out of work for several months. It also takes a financial toll, costing upwards of $600,000 in surgical expenses in addition to ongoing costs for medication and treatment that will last the rest of Jodi’s life.
Jodi is expected to undergo her transplant in 2012 at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) under the care of an excellent medical team, including her hepatologist, Dr. Daniel Pratt, MD. She is not lacking in potential donors: a self-titled “Gang of 8” family members have already inundated the staff at MGH with donor-registration materials. To this selfless crew, the decision to be considered for donation was not a question, but a necessity in order to see Jodi live and thrive. The team at MGH has already begun the process of evaluating the potential donors to select the appropriate match.
Jodi currently works as a Nurse Midwife at York Hospital OBGYN and Midwifery Associates in York, Maine, but will be leaving the practice on disability in January 2012 due to her disease. She is loved and admired by the many family, friends, and patients whose lives she has touched with her gentle strength, generosity, and presence. As she prepares for her transplant, she is both grateful for the full life she has lived and hopeful for the future. Jodi is surrounded by a loving and supportive network of family and friends – she is humbled by all that they have done and continue to do to help her fight back and reclaim her life from this disease.

Important information:
Family and friends of Jodi DeMuth are raising money to pay for uninsured medical expenses associated with transplantation.

Jodi has chosen to fundraise with HelpHOPELive in part because HelpHOPELive assures fiscal accountability of funds raised and tax deductibility for donors. Donors can be sure that funds donated will be used only to pay or reimburse medically-related expenses. For more information, please contact HelpHOPELive at 800.642.8399.

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