Support Chris During His Heart Transplant

Since November, my brother Chris (age 37) has been battling a relentless fight against congestive heart failure, brought on by a rare inflammatory disease that attacked his heart seven years ago. For the past several weeks, he has been under care at the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit of Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA, and is now awaiting a heart transplant. Although several surgical interventions have been attempted, they have exhausted all options to try to keep his heart functioning properly enough for him to even get out of bed without assistance. As of now, he is listed as a Status 2, meaning that, without a new heart, he is unlikely to live beyond the next month. Doctors are hopeful he can expect a donor by mid-March. At which that point he will require life-long post-transplant care.

From the mountain ridges of West Virginia to the waters of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, Chris has always enjoyed an active lifestyle full of hunting, fishing, and family hikes with his wife and daughter before his diagnosis.

Unfortunately, his condition limited his abilities, thus forcing him to resign from his position as Barge Captain on oil tankers along the eastern seaboard. He then moved on to become an administrator at a family-owned autobody shop in Elkins, before taking up a role in the purchasing department of the West Virginia Department of Highways.

While this bittersweet news comes with many emotions of hope and fear, it is compounded by the overwhelming amount of financial stress and strain on top of what we know they are already facing and will continue to experience for the rest of their life.

Chris has not been able to work since last year, leaving his wife to support him and their 9-year-old daughter, Addison. She has had to juggle her duties nonstop between her family and her job so she can support them and also retain their health insurance. To add to their hardship, living in West Virginia means they have to travel extensively for appointments, thus requiring costly lodging, time off work, and long hours traveling back and forth. On top of that, Addison has been living with relatives back home, which is three hours away from the hospital just so she can still attend school and attempt to maintain as much normalcy as possible during this time. The worst part of it all is due to her age she is not allowed in the ICU to see her dad, leaving her with extremely limited chances of seeing her father for the last few months.

Although the hospital provides terrific family housing opportunities for families like Chris’s, it still costs nearly as much as renting a small apartment, even after financial aid. The family has already experienced extreme emotional distress and now must deal with the challenge of covering their bills while planning for one of the most expensive and intense surgeries one can get. The average heart transplant costs more than $1.6 million. Health insurance will cover only a portion of the transplant costs. For the rest of his life, Chris will need follow-up care and daily anti-rejection medications. Post-transplant medications are very expensive and they are as critical to his survival as the transplant itself.

Close family and friends are helping out as much as they can, but they still require much more assistance. My brother and his family have gone through a nightmare of a journey up until this point and while we know he will have a long road ahead, we are hopeful and praying Chris will have a happy ending to this tragic journey.

Your support and prayers for a successful transplant mean everything to Chris and our family. Therefore, we humbly request for any kind of assistance, no matter how small, to be offered to this young, suffering family so that we all can welcome him home again.

If you can make a financial contribution for Chris's transplant-related expenses that are not covered by health insurance, we thank you so much !!