Help Maria Find a Cure

Hi, my name is Jessica and I’m fundraising for my sister Maria. Maria is dangerously ill and will most likely require a liver transplant in the future but first, she needs to get a clear answer on what exactly is going on with her liver, come up with a plan of treatment, and manage her current symptoms. This fundraiser is to help her pay the pileup of medical bills, obtain a more immediate solution to buy time and to assist with alternative therapies to keep her alive long enough for a transplant. Even if she gets approved by UNOS for the transplant list- it is never guaranteed and she could wait for years.

Maria has polycystic kidney and liver disease, a genetic disease where benign cysts grow on your kidneys and liver. My brother and I also have the disease, as does our mother and other family members on that side. However, it has rarely affected the quality of our lives and most of us are very healthy with few symptoms, as was the case with Maria until a few months ago.

In March, Maria had a therapeutic procedure done to reduce the volume of the cysts on her liver. It went well and there were no complications. One week later, she tripped and fell chest-first onto the concrete of her parking garage floor. Several liver cysts ruptured, she suffered internal bleeding, received a blood transfusion and was in the ICU for several days. Since then, her health has gone downhill: her liver condition deteriorated and her doctors can’t pinpoint the reason why, other than saying that she needs a transplant. The process of getting on the liver transplant list is not an easy one, especially as her condition is rare and there is more demand than supply. The vast majority of liver transplants are for people with cirrhosis and then people with cancer —and she has neither. She finally had a doctor recognize that she currently has IVC obstruction, which is a compression or blockage of the inferior vena cava, the main channel that runs directly through the liver supplying oxygenated blood to the liver and heart. As a result, she is suffering from skeletal muscle atrophy, is unable to process protein through the liver and her organs are oxygen deprived. She is suffering from debilitating chronic pain, extreme physical weakness and an excess of abdominal fluid retention that needs to be regularly drained via paracentesis. She has been in and out of various hospitals for several months trying to find an answer.

Maria is an amazing single mother to her bright, beautiful and feisty 15 month daughter, Amaya. She is the sole provider for herself and Amaya but has been unable to work due to her health. Amaya was born nearly seven weeks premature and Maria still has the burden of paying off the steep NICU bill, as well as all hospitalizations in May when she was uninsured, which is adding stress to the situation. She was very reluctant to do a fundraiser as she’s always prided herself on her self-reliance, ambition and strong work ethic which led to her successful career as a private chef for celebrities in Los Angeles. But, she realizes that there is a time and a place to ask for help—and that time is now.

Any donation that you could make would go directly towards helping her stay afloat, pay hospital bills, and research and travel to specialists until we find out what exactly her cure will be.

Maria is currently seeking out third and fourth opinions due to the complex nature of what happened, and we are hoping that she will be accepted to the Mayo Clinic for an evaluation at the very least, where there will be more resources for a rare case. Unfortunately, this will be an additional large out-of-pocket expense.

My Mom is in Los Angeles with her now, and I'm hoping to fly out to help as much as I can. Maria is a fighter, she is doing all she can to survive and find a cure. Your support would mean so much.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, from our entire family, for any help you are able to give Maria.