Selagi Mikaio

Selagi is a loving mother, devoted wife and an active grandmother. She loved playing with her grandkids. One day while caring for her grand-daughter she suddenly felt a strong chest pain and dizziness. It got harder to breathe and she was unable to focus on the baby. Selagi was immediately rushed to a clinic where the doctor on duty checked her vitals and sent her directly to the hospital across town where she was in complete heart failure. Which was later diagnosed as Congestive Heart Failure (CHF).

For years, Selagi had been in and out of clinics and hospitals. In 2009 she had experienced a heart attack, during which time her heart was only able to pump with the assistance of an Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). She had to be very cautious around her grand kids, she didn’t have the energy to play with them or was unable to cuddle them as she always did when she saw them. Due to the ICD, she had to step back and give them instructions on how to touch grandma. Her abnormal heart rhythm, the loss of appetite, the constant chest pain, coughing, shortness of breath were all of the symptoms that her grandkids had to witness which kept them questioning if their grandmother was going to survive.

The doctors had informed the family that only ten percent of her heart is functional. Selagi’s official diagnosis is cardiomyopathy which is an acquired or hereditary disease of the heart muscle.

Her condition was deteriorating her inside having other organs to shutdown to the point where she was placed on the transplant list. She was able to receive a new heart a week ago and is recovering at rapid speed. Thank you to the donor our hero, Selagi is on her way to a better health and will be able to play with her grandchildren. During her recovery stage, she will need to live near the hospital for a couple of months and that is where she needs help.

After many years of helping others, Selagi is now the one who needs our help. Transplantation and follow-up medications, treatments, housing, and transportation are very expensive.

To help with the financial burden of Selagi’s uninsured expenses, a fundraising campaign in her honor has been established with HelpHOPELive, a trusted nonprofit organization that has been providing community-based fundraising guidance to patients and their families for more than 30 years. All donations are tax deductible, are held by HelpHOPELive in the Heart Transplant Fund, and are administered by HelpHOPELive for transplant-related expenses only. Please consider a contribution.

If we all work together we can make Selagi’s prospects for the future much happier and less stress. She can finally play with her grandchildren and travel like she wanted to with no complications.

With sincere gratitude,
The Mikaio Family

Family and friends of Selagi Mikaio are raising money to pay for uninsured medical expenses associated with transplantation.

Selagi 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. To make a tax-deductible donation to this fundraising campaign, click on the Donate Now button.

For more information, please contact HelpHOPELive at 800.642.8399.

Thank you for your support!