Help Transplanted Teen with Second Chance at Life

Hi, my name is Erin Emblem. My family experienced a life changing medical emergency that we have been quietly handling on our own for the past 2 1/2 years. I'm asking for your help today because we've run completely through our savings and have recently fallen behind on our bills. This campaign is raise funds to help cover our immediate living expenses so that our family can stay in our home and have a reprieve while we recover and get back on our feet.

In the Summer of 2022 my teenaged daughter, Kailey, began to show signs of what we now was Liver failure. It took a year and countless visits to the pediatrician, urgent care, emergency room and subsequent hospitalizations to discover she needed to have a Heart and a Liver transplant. She was admitted to UCLA in August of 2023 to be listed for a dual organ transplant and in October she received an incredibly rare, combined Heart and Liver transplant. She experienced a lot of close calls, and a number of complications including the loss of her Kidney function; which prolonged her recovery and extended her hospital stay until May of 2024. After she was discharged home, Kailey received out-patient pediatric dialysis at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego 4-5x per week until June of 2024, when she was admitted at UCLA to be listed and received a Kidney transplant.

After her Kidney transplant, Kailey was discharged home at the beginning of July, but required readmissions again in July, August, September, October, and November. Last month, was the first month in almost two years that Kailey was able to stay out and away from the hospital and we could be home again together as a family. It feels really nice to get to be home.

Our family lives a humble but comfortable life in Murrieta, California, in a two-income household, that’s dependent on two incomes. Like a lot of working families, we make too much to receive government assistance, but not enough to survive on a single income. My husband is a school teacher and over the past 2 ½ years, our family has been sustained almost entirely on his modest teacher's salary.

My husband and I are both fiercely independent and proud and instead of asking for help, we silently shouldered the burden on our own for as long as humanly possible until there was nothing left. We spent every penny of our savings, maxed out our credit cards, took out $40,000 in personal and $100,000 in unforgivable business loans to keep our family afloat. We were not financially prepared to weather a series of so many life changing medical emergencies of this magnitude, and for so long. And last month, the wheels came off.

Last month was pretty rough. Both of our cars had unexpected repairs that needed to be taken care of so that we could keep them running and we had finally run through all of the money we borrowed... including my mother's life savings. I was only able to cover our family's basic living expenses: food, gas, insurance, and utilities. And for the first time it sank in that I didn't have the money to pay our mortgage or our credit card bills and I wasn't sure where or how I was going to come up with it.

I don’t want to lose our home and our lives, especially now that my daughter has been given a second chance at life and we've just finally started to live again. If you are in a position to make a contribution today to help me and my family get back on our feet, it would be life changing, and greatly appreciated.

My family and I am are incredibly grateful for any support you can personally offer. Every contribution, no matter how small, will make a difference as our family tries to rebuild and recover.

Thank you for your kindness, compassion and support.

Please share our story with your friends and family. Spreading the word will be a huge help!

With Love,

Erin

PS. Photographs and postings of my daughter’s incredible medical journey are posted publicly on my Facebook account and can be viewed at: www.Facebook.com/ErinEmblem