A Breath of Life for Becky Mack

My name is Brennan Mack. About 4 years ago, my father passed away from pancreatic cancer. My mother, Becky, had been working around the clock to ease her husband's suffering. In fact, she was working so hard that she didn't notice her own declining health. She was having difficulty breathing and after a lot of tests, her doctor told her she had Pulmonary Hypertension, or PH for short.

PH is a little-known and little-understood disease that causes the blood pressure in my mom's lungs to skyrocket, which makes it impossible for her to breathe on her own.

She has been oxygen dependent for years, meaning that without being connected to an oxygen source 24/7, she simply could not survive. Right now Becky lives her entire life strapped to either a massive steel oxygen tank (which only gives her about an hour of necessary oxygen) or a "floor concentrator", a machine that turns the surrounding air into concentrated oxygen for her to breathe.

Unfortunately this floor concentrator is over 50 lbs and feels more like a ball-and-chain than a life-saving device. Even a simple trip to the grocery store takes a ton of effort because she can barely lift her tank, and there's no way she can move the floor concentrator. As a result, she can rarely leave her house. In many ways, this disease has become like a prison for her.

Fortunately, there is an alternative: a PORTABLE OXYGEN CONCENTRATOR. Just like her floor concentrator, this portable concentrator will give her the air she needs to breathe but will allow her to carry it around with her. She would be able to leave the house and live her life again for the first time in far, far too long.

In addition, actions that you and I might consider normal (walking for a few minutes, etc.) are still quite difficult for Becky, even with a portable oxygen concentrator. For that reason she also needs a MOTORIZED WHEELCHAIR to help her go where she wants without running out of breath every couple minutes.

Becky's friends and loved ones at First Lutheran Church of Vista and I are working together to get Becky the help she needs.

PLEASE HELP get Becky Mack the things she needs to live, not just survive. Because of her incredibly high medical bills, Becky simply is not able to afford these things on her own. If everyone donates just a little, she can start living a more full life right away. Please donate now to help her. We're incredibly grateful for all of your love and kindness in this time of need.

We also hope that this page creates better PH awareness. For more resources on PH, please visit: https://phassociation.org/


UPDATE 1/28/20: Becky is back from the hospital after a week-long bout with a pneumonia-like illness. Her recovery will be slow, but we are thankful to have friends and family helping her through this. Thank you all for your help and contributions, we have just about enough to purchase the electric wheelchair, which is priority #1. Once she has her mobility back, the oxygen concentrator will be our next step.

UPDATE 7/7/20: Sorry for this update being much later that I should have sent it, but with even though we didn't hit the full goal, we were still able to find a great deal on both a wheelchair and an oxygen concentrator.  Thanks to all of you who donated, my mom has the mobility to live her life. I can't express to you all how much this means, and we are all eternally grateful.