Travel expenses for my liver transplant

My name is Jodi and at the age of 53, I was diagnosed with non-alcoholic cirrhosis. In the last 6 months, I have gone drastically downhill healthwise. My body is swollen from ascites because my liver is not doing what it's supposed to. Because of the buildup of fluids, I become exhausted easily and if I go out, I need a wheelchair. Currently, I am in the hospital, bedridden because my legs and feet are so swollen. It's hard to for me to move. I have many more symptoms, such as, dizziness, constant pain, lack of appetite, etc. Before now I had never realized just how much our livers affect our bodies.

Fortunately, I have the best medical staff taking care of me. Manitoba doesn't do liver transplants here and so I will be sent to Toronto which is one of the top liver transplant hospitals in the world. I am fortunate that I live in Canada, so the testing, operation and hospital stay is free. Unfortunately, the travel expenses are not.

When the transplant team in Canada calls, I have to pay the airfare for myself and my primary caregiver, food and the hotel. After surgery, it's expected I'll be in the hospital for about 3 weeks and my primary will have to stay in the hotel and pay for travel to the hospital and food.

This is very costly. Due to my condition, I am unable to work and live on disability through CPP, which is barely enough to live and does not allow me to spend on extras. I cannot afford the travel expenses, so must use this platform to ask for help.

I hang my head in shame that I have to ask for help. As a single Mom, I've always been able to provide for myself and my son. So I ask of you to please, if you can, donate towards this fund to help with travel. Every little bit helps.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to anyone that does.