Kristie Goza Wallace

Hi everyone, this is Kristie Wallace, mother, daughter, sister, friend, and cancer survivor. I’ve been incredibly blessed with so much love and support from many of you over the 20 years that I’ve struggled with my health, especially the past 6 years as I’ve fought for my life harder than ever before. I thank you all for standing by me. Now, as difficult as this is, I have to ask for your help once again.

My doctors have confirmed that my body will not survive much longer without an intestinal transplant. This means that I need a new small intestine. If the good Lord plans to leave me on this Earth a little longer, I’ll be getting the transplant at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. There are only a few hospitals in the country who do this sort of transplant, and Cleveland Clinic is the best.

I’ve had to move to Ohio (leaving my home in Florida), where I’m renting an apartment at The Transplant House of Cleveland. My transplant team required me to be in Cleveland while I wait for a matching donor because we have found that, due to many blood transfusions over the last 6 years, I have multiple antibodies, one which is ever-changing and must be monitored and tested every 72 hours by the labs at the Cleveland Clinic so they can be prepared with matching units of blood that will be needed for my transplant surgery. These antibodies also make it difficult to find an exact matching donor, only 2-4% of them will match me. So unfortunately, it could be months, possibly years, before we find that perfect donor. However, I have faith that God will provide that match in His perfect timing.

Once we finally find my donor and I’ve had the surgery, I’ll be in the hospital for several weeks, then possibly a rehab facility, before I’m released to go back to my apartment at the Transplant House. I’ll stay there, most likely another 3-6 months. I must stay there to be close to the hospital where I’ll have follow up appointments several days a week until my team of doctors believe I’m past the probability of rejecting the new organ. They also require me to have a full time caregiver 24 hours a day for my safety.

I have been on Disability since my health took a drastic turn for the worst in 2015, and have been unable to work. So my finances are extremely limited. Needless to say, it’s going to cost 10’s of thousands of dollars to pay for my expenses while I’m in Cleveland. Housing, travel, daily needs, deductibles and other medical related expenses not covered by my insurance, including but not limited to pre-surgery treatments, after-care, rehab facility charges, caregiver salary, and ongoing anti-rejection drugs that I’ll be on for the rest of my life.

Family and friends, I’m asking that you help me raise the funds I need for these medical related expenses associated with my organ transplant. Donations can be made in my honor to the nonprofit, Help Hope Live. This 501C3 organization assures fiscal accountability of funds raised and tax deductibility for contributors. Contributors can be sure donations will be used to pay or reimburse medical and related expenses. To make a tax-deductible donation to this fundraising campaign, click on the Give button.

For those of you who have not followed my story all along, I’ll give you a summary as brief as possible. I was diagnosed with anal cancer in 2001. My doctors recommended extremely aggressive chemotherapy and radiation. The treatments worked and 10 months later, I was cancer free. However, over the next several years it became apparent that I was not healing from the radiation damage. It had severely burned the majority of my GI system, female organs, and more, causing many problems over the next 14 years.

In 2015, I found out it was even worse that I had thought. My scarred intestines had tightened and tangled over the years and had finally become completely obstructed, which took me into emergency surgery to remove portions of the colon and construct a colostomy. We had to repeat the procedure two months later when I had a second obstruction. My health got worse from there. I was getting sicker and sicker and my doctors couldn’t explain it and finally said there was nothing more they could do for me.

I found a doctor in Florida who agreed to take my case. So I left my home in Kansas City to relocate near my new doctor. I had a major surgery where he removed everything that was burned up from the radiation including a full hysterectomy, gallbladder, appendix, rectum, anus, colon, and a portion of the small intestine, then replaced the colostomy with an internal ostomy called a BCIR. After this surgery, I became even sicker. I lost so much weight, I was barely 80 pounds, withering away, and my kidneys and other organs started shutting down.

Finally I got to a doctor who realized my small intestine was so scarred from the radiation burns, that it was no longer able to absorb nutrients or hydration. I was slowly dying of malnutrition! The only solution was to put me on Total Parenteral Nutrition, TPN. I was hooked up to an IV to receive the TPN 24 hours a day for the last 5 years. It saved my life, but also took a toll on my body. It has been tearing up my liver and pancreas, causing constant infections, and wearing out my veins, among other complications. I’ve had nearly 20 surgeries in 6 years, months upon months in hospitals, and one treatment after another attempting to give me some sort of quality of life.

Now I’m to the point that my body has said, “Enough!”. For multiple reasons, the doctors have confirmed that I can not continue like this much longer and the only solution is a new small intestine. That is what brought me to the transplant team at Cleveland Clinic. I can’t survive without this transplant, and I can’t stay here and undergo the transplant without the funds to do so. So I pray that I’ll get the help I need to make this happen and finally, after 20+ years of suffering, regain a somewhat normal life again.

Thank you for your support and may God bless each and every one of you!