Help with Baby Jenna's Chemo and Liver Transplant
My sister and her little family need some help. Their baby is sick and the medical bills for her treatment are staggering...
Tiffiny and Mark have had their fair share of tragedy in their almost 12 years together. You wouldn't know it to meet them. They are loving, joyful and fun, but mostly, they are dedicated, loving parents. They started in Arizona and then moved to Utah to be close to family. They brought with them their first baby, Ryan, who is now 10 and a devoted big brother. Mark has worked more than one job for several years now to take care of his family, and Tiffiny works from home sewing anything you can think of and selling her handmade products online. They have worked very hard, like the rest of us, through the financial stresses of normal life and the recession. In recent years they have had to keep on in the face of devastating loss. They survived the suicide of our father, the loss of Mark's father to cancer, and the painful loss of their second baby. And yet, with time, have healed and kept moving forward together. Then in September 2011, joyfully, they welcomed baby Jenna.
Jenna is a beautiful baby. She is sweet and smart and people who meet her comment on her beautiful bright eyes. When she was still very little she developed what looked like cradle cap around her ears and on her head, also a rash in her armpits that appeared to be from heat and moisture, and eventually bad diaper rash. They saw several doctors over a year and were told the rashes were caused from a variety of things from food allergies to fungal infection, but no treatment ever made a lasting difference. It got worse and worse...and then one night the rash started to bleed and wouldn't stop. That's when they took her to Primary Children's Medical Center. That is when they found out she had something called LCH (Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis).
None of us had heard of LCH. I still don't know how to explain it. But what I can tell you is it's rare and it's kind of like leukemia but not cancer, and Jenna had it in her skin, her liver and her bone marrow. The only treatment for this disease is chemotherapy which she has been receiving for 8 months. After a liver biopsy done in April the doctors said the LCH is in remission (YEA!) Jenna's chemo treatment will continue now into 2014 to ensure the disease doesn't come back. Unfortunately, the liver biopsy also showed Jenna has pretty severe liver damage. It is only a matter of time before she will need a liver transplant... In just 7 months of treatment their bills and related expenses have reached almost $350k (quite a bit of which thankfully has been covered by insurance). We can only imagine what the total cost of her treatment will be.
Mark and Tiffiny are really struggling with their part of the bills, and they aren't even halfway through the projected treatment. They are getting great care and have great insurance and still the expenses are overwhelming... Seeing Jenna go through this is hard enough.
Please help my sister and her family. They are good people doing the best they can with what they've got and this time, it's just not enough... If you feel called to, please donate what you can and share their story with others. Every little bit helps! Thank you!
The money donated goes to monthly payments on the hospital and doctor bills, co-pays, prescriptions and medical supplies not covered by insurance, meals and travel expenses for their frequent hospital visits, and occasionally pays for food and basic living expenses during particularly lien times after extensive hospital stays... Everything helps make a difference for their family - Thank You!
Tiffiny and Mark have had their fair share of tragedy in their almost 12 years together. You wouldn't know it to meet them. They are loving, joyful and fun, but mostly, they are dedicated, loving parents. They started in Arizona and then moved to Utah to be close to family. They brought with them their first baby, Ryan, who is now 10 and a devoted big brother. Mark has worked more than one job for several years now to take care of his family, and Tiffiny works from home sewing anything you can think of and selling her handmade products online. They have worked very hard, like the rest of us, through the financial stresses of normal life and the recession. In recent years they have had to keep on in the face of devastating loss. They survived the suicide of our father, the loss of Mark's father to cancer, and the painful loss of their second baby. And yet, with time, have healed and kept moving forward together. Then in September 2011, joyfully, they welcomed baby Jenna.
Jenna is a beautiful baby. She is sweet and smart and people who meet her comment on her beautiful bright eyes. When she was still very little she developed what looked like cradle cap around her ears and on her head, also a rash in her armpits that appeared to be from heat and moisture, and eventually bad diaper rash. They saw several doctors over a year and were told the rashes were caused from a variety of things from food allergies to fungal infection, but no treatment ever made a lasting difference. It got worse and worse...and then one night the rash started to bleed and wouldn't stop. That's when they took her to Primary Children's Medical Center. That is when they found out she had something called LCH (Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis).
None of us had heard of LCH. I still don't know how to explain it. But what I can tell you is it's rare and it's kind of like leukemia but not cancer, and Jenna had it in her skin, her liver and her bone marrow. The only treatment for this disease is chemotherapy which she has been receiving for 8 months. After a liver biopsy done in April the doctors said the LCH is in remission (YEA!) Jenna's chemo treatment will continue now into 2014 to ensure the disease doesn't come back. Unfortunately, the liver biopsy also showed Jenna has pretty severe liver damage. It is only a matter of time before she will need a liver transplant... In just 7 months of treatment their bills and related expenses have reached almost $350k (quite a bit of which thankfully has been covered by insurance). We can only imagine what the total cost of her treatment will be.
Mark and Tiffiny are really struggling with their part of the bills, and they aren't even halfway through the projected treatment. They are getting great care and have great insurance and still the expenses are overwhelming... Seeing Jenna go through this is hard enough.
Please help my sister and her family. They are good people doing the best they can with what they've got and this time, it's just not enough... If you feel called to, please donate what you can and share their story with others. Every little bit helps! Thank you!
The money donated goes to monthly payments on the hospital and doctor bills, co-pays, prescriptions and medical supplies not covered by insurance, meals and travel expenses for their frequent hospital visits, and occasionally pays for food and basic living expenses during particularly lien times after extensive hospital stays... Everything helps make a difference for their family - Thank You!
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