Help Ben with Transplant Expenses
Donation protected
Please help Ben Blake offset his living expenses while he heals from his up-coming Liver Re-Transplant
My name is Benjamin Blake. I am 26 years old and have decided to start this medical fundraiser to help me stay afloat financially while I am healing from a major operation. My medical need started a long time ago - I was born in Albany New York in 1990, but just months later needed to relocate with my family to Boston for treatment of a rare congenital disease called biliary atresia, which I was born with. The only long-term treatment for biliary atresia at that time, or even today, is a whole liver organ transplant, which I was blessed enough to receive in 1990, when I was just 7 months old. My donor organ has now kept me alive for 26 years, but has suddenly failed me during college, about 5 years ago. I was diagnosed with chronic liver failure and placed on liver transplant list in New England, and have been waiting for a liver transplant during these 5 years since being diagnosed.
I greatly appreciate having the gift of life given to me through my first transplant. But still, life has not always been easy. I have been fighting the symptoms of my disease and taking medicine for my entire life, and now have many symptoms of liver disease ranging from severe pain, muscle weakness, liver problems, memory loss, and extreme fatigue. Also, because I am “immuno-compromised” by my anti-rejection medicine, I am at serious risk for serious infection or other diseases and I do have to be hospitalized for infection fairly often. I have become very sick over the last year, because I have no working immune system. I have become dangerously ill more so than I have ever been.
My goal is to raise $10,000, and this fund is intended to help me and my parents cover the costs of my healing after I receive my liver re-transplant and the associated costs due to my liver disease. For example, not being able to work regularly now (and not at all after the transplant) means that I have little income to afford just the basics of living, keeping me functioning, medical treatment co-pays, paracentesis treatments (for abdomen fluid draining), doctor visits, blood tests and living expenses while I complete my transplant and recovery. I am right now in an emergency situation where my liver is not functioning, and I need and hope to receive a liver transplant as soon as possible. My doctors assure me that they believe I will receive a liver, and maybe even a pancreas, which was also damaged by my disease and constant medicines over the last 26 years. After which, I can begin to heal, but I will not be able to resume work for at least 6 months, and maybe as long as a year. So I am asking for help, and grateful for anyone taking the time to read my story.
Thank you thank you so much for your moral support, any financial support you can give, as well as sharing my story and fund raiser with other caring people!
With Love and Respect, Ben Blake
P.S. You can read/see more about my story, and learn about biliary atresia, at:
www.benblake.org
and also at:
https://www.facebook.com/1256266934/posts/10209251189697562/?pnref=story
My name is Benjamin Blake. I am 26 years old and have decided to start this medical fundraiser to help me stay afloat financially while I am healing from a major operation. My medical need started a long time ago - I was born in Albany New York in 1990, but just months later needed to relocate with my family to Boston for treatment of a rare congenital disease called biliary atresia, which I was born with. The only long-term treatment for biliary atresia at that time, or even today, is a whole liver organ transplant, which I was blessed enough to receive in 1990, when I was just 7 months old. My donor organ has now kept me alive for 26 years, but has suddenly failed me during college, about 5 years ago. I was diagnosed with chronic liver failure and placed on liver transplant list in New England, and have been waiting for a liver transplant during these 5 years since being diagnosed.
I greatly appreciate having the gift of life given to me through my first transplant. But still, life has not always been easy. I have been fighting the symptoms of my disease and taking medicine for my entire life, and now have many symptoms of liver disease ranging from severe pain, muscle weakness, liver problems, memory loss, and extreme fatigue. Also, because I am “immuno-compromised” by my anti-rejection medicine, I am at serious risk for serious infection or other diseases and I do have to be hospitalized for infection fairly often. I have become very sick over the last year, because I have no working immune system. I have become dangerously ill more so than I have ever been.
My goal is to raise $10,000, and this fund is intended to help me and my parents cover the costs of my healing after I receive my liver re-transplant and the associated costs due to my liver disease. For example, not being able to work regularly now (and not at all after the transplant) means that I have little income to afford just the basics of living, keeping me functioning, medical treatment co-pays, paracentesis treatments (for abdomen fluid draining), doctor visits, blood tests and living expenses while I complete my transplant and recovery. I am right now in an emergency situation where my liver is not functioning, and I need and hope to receive a liver transplant as soon as possible. My doctors assure me that they believe I will receive a liver, and maybe even a pancreas, which was also damaged by my disease and constant medicines over the last 26 years. After which, I can begin to heal, but I will not be able to resume work for at least 6 months, and maybe as long as a year. So I am asking for help, and grateful for anyone taking the time to read my story.
Thank you thank you so much for your moral support, any financial support you can give, as well as sharing my story and fund raiser with other caring people!
With Love and Respect, Ben Blake
P.S. You can read/see more about my story, and learn about biliary atresia, at:
www.benblake.org
and also at:
https://www.facebook.com/1256266934/posts/10209251189697562/?pnref=story
Organizer and beneficiary
Duane Blake
Organizer
Westwood, MA
Ben Blake
Beneficiary