Hi! I´m Natalia Rivero, but I like to be called Nat.
I´m 26 years old and I´m a psychologist.
I was born with a condition named Primary Ciliary Dyskinecia (PCD), which all my life has been affecting my lungs till the moment in which I needed a double lung transplant.
This procedure is done in private hospitals, which are really expensive, so in order for me to have the surgery it was necessary to carry out a fundraising campaign named “Breathing Life”. This campaign raised, in 2014, one million dollars, which was the amount that our hospital and its specialists told us we were going to need throughout the whole transplant process. And we deposited it all to the hospital as it was requested to us.
A couple of weeks ago, my phone rang, and on the other side was the doctor, whom informed me that a pair of lungs had arrived for me, and everything was ready to proceed with the transplant and change my life.
The operation turned out really well! And beside some little complications that have happened along the way , my recovery process has been really successful. Every day I do the biggest of efforts to get better and be able to use my new lungs at its best.
There will pass some couple of months in which I´m going to adapt myself to the new lungs and learn to breath as you do. In order to recovery and get my body ready, I´m going to need all of your support, love demonstrations and prayers which will push me day by day. But besides your support I´m reaching to you because, in these 7 years that have passed since we raised the money for the surgery, and now that the operation has been done, the prices in everything within the hospital have raised a lot, and our savings, raised with all your love and help through Breathing Life, have already been used.
The expenses in my process are still increasing inside the hospital, and also, I don´t have money for paying my after surgery medications anymore, which are necessary for my health to resume stable and my new lungs to keep working perfectly.
Today I need your support in order for me to cover my extra transplant expenses, because with my family´s work and mine´s, isn´t enough. That´s why I´m reaching you, I´m on the finish line of my long sickness process, and at the same time, in the first chapter of my future, great and happy life.
I´m sure that, because of you and your immense love, it will be possible and we will make it happen.