<div>Hey y’all! I’m Caitlin. Lena Wilbanks’ sister in law. She is dire need of a new heart and liver! Lena was born with a congenital heart defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), which is essentially a half of a heart. At the time of her birth, there was no set treatment for babies born with this condition. Thankfully, a highly skilled surgeon at Children's Hospital Of Philadlephia went against all the rules and decided to do an experimental procedure on Lena to try to fix her heart. This surgeon was named Dr. Norwood. Today, babies born with HLHS UNDERGO THE "Norwood procedure" and do pretty well. Lena underwent 2 open heart surgeries at the ages of 3 and 5. For years after her surgeries, Lena was able to live a somewhat normal life. In college, she suffered a few strokes, which she was thankfully was able to fully recover from. In 2012, she suffered a massive stroke, which left her with difficultly speaking (aphasia). After a year of speech therapy, she was finally able to communicate properly again. In 2021, right before Lena was supposed to travel to Jamaica for her wedding, she went into heart failure. She was barely able to walk down the aisle at her wedding in Charleston, but she somehow made it happen. At that time, she underwent her 3rd open heart surgery, where she had a permanent external pacemaker placed and was started on multiple heart failure meds. Miraculously, Lena recovered and was able to go on with her everyday life for almost two years... until now. The last few weeks, Lena increasingly became short of breath. She went into the hospital to make sure everything was ok, and was told her heart is failing again. We are now running out of options to medically treat her heart failure, so we are moving forward with her heart and liver transplant. Patients with HLHS end up with liver failure due to the decreased blood flow to the liver. Lena is one of the longest living people in the world with HLHS. Lena continues to be active in the HLHS community, and has been an inspiration to many people and so many families with loved ones affected by HLHS. There is no telling when Lena will receive her transplant, but she will be bed bound and wheelchair bound until her surgery. So not only has all of this occurred but now insurance is not wanting to approve her transplant! They are continually fighting the insurance company. Flights and hotel arrangements have had to be cancelled just this week because of the insurance not approving for all of the testing that needs to be done for Lena to be able to quickly get on the heart transplant list. Lena needs a new heart because the one she was born with is not going to last much longer. Lena continues to be optimistic and needs the support of friends and family now more than ever. Please donate to help them with the tremendous amount of bills that are already piling up. Lena is no longer able to work and they will have to depend on her husbands income to pay all the bills in Charleston where they live as well as when they travel to Nashville because they will have to pay for a place to stay there as well since Lena has to remain in the hospital for a whole year after her surgery. Your donations will hopefully be able to give them some peace of mind as they pay for travel expenses, medical expenses, and two house payments. Lena’s husband Josh will also have to continually travel back and forth between Nashville and Charleston so he can still keep his job so the travel expenses will definitely be increased. Thank you so much! And please share! 
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Human Technologies

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Help for a heart

Help for a heart

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