Brenda Castro's Journey

Hi, my name is Brenda Castro and I want to start off with giving you a little background about me and who have been my inspiration to fight this battle.

I am 20 years old, soon to be 21 in July. I love writing ,I am a mother to my beautiful 2 year old daughter Zulema, fiancé to an amazing man Andre, and daughter of my two loving parents ..I have to awesome siblings .They have been my biggest supporters and have gone above and beyond to make sure they are there for me. This unfortunately has lead to them having to take time off from work so that they could be there for me and help take care of my daughter while I am hospitalized. Needless to say these hospitalizations and procedures are very expensive, so I also want to start off by saying this has been a hard rocky road and my family and I cant even begin to describe the appreciation we have for all the generosity and support from everyone that we have received already.

So here's the part that stinks...
I have a low immune system (CVID and GLILD diagnosis) that causes me to not be able to fight off any infections because I do not have any antibodies. I get IVIG (IV treatments to give me antibodies) every 3 weeks, IV Rituximab every week among many other medications that will hopefully help with my immune disease. So from this disease I also have Bronchiectasis. It is a rare lung disease that causes my lungs to get filled up with mucus which in the end causes me to get frequent infections. Within the past couple years my lung function has continued to decline. My lung percentage has dropped drastically. My lung percentage is at 15%/100 (for a normal person it would be 90-100). This unfortunately means I need a Lung transplant!A lung transplant is difficult to begin with for someone who is healthy, but with my immune disorder this means there are a lot more risks. However in the mean time if my lung percentage goes down to 9% percent I will need to be on a ventilator. My biggest fear! But, I am going to keep my spirits up and keep fighting the good fight!

Thank you for reading and sharing my story! Me and my family would appreciate any kind of donation. No matter how small, please and thank you. God bless