Help Heather Zamora Heal

Say hi to Heather Zamora! Anyone that knows her is blessed beyond measure for having her in their life. She is kind, passionate, loves fiercely, and recently she has had medical issues that led to VERY unexpected complications and multiple surgeries. She has handled this with strength and grace. Which you’re about to find out is how she has dealt with so many things in her life. Here is her story ...

”After about a year of meeting with several doctors and having several scans done, Heather was diagnosed with a benign carotid body tumor (which would later be called a vagal schwannoma-a tumor in the vagus nerve). She made plans to have surgery to have the tumor removed and expected to return to work in 2 weeks.

She had her surgery on July 25th, and she was devastated to find out that she suffered severe side effects from the surgery. A section of her vagus nerve had to be removed, and the vagus nerve controls many critical functions of the body. Heather was diagnosed with dysphasia (difficulty swallowing) and her left vocal cord was paralyzed. She also has other side effects including difficulty taking deep breaths and difficulty with her speech. She spent over a week in the hospital recovering from her surgery, and while there she received a small injection to help her amplify her voice (for about a month) and an ng feeding tube (tube in the nose).
She began meeting with her swallow and voice team, including her ENT and her speech therapist shortly after coming home to come up with a plan of care and talk about what future surgeries and treatments are going to be needed to help the function of her voice and swallow. Her prognosis is unknown, but Heather is working hard to overcome the odds and has faith that she will one day eat and speak clearly again.
She recently (September 4th) had surgery to replace her ng tube with a g tube (tube in the stomach) and she is hoping this will bring her more mobility and comfort. Her first night home from her g tube surgery, she reported that she was able to sleep through the night for the 1st time since her initial surgery.

She will need to go on long-term disability and will not be able to receive her full salary for about 1 year.  Due to the therapy involved for Heather’s healing and the surgeries that she may need in the next year, we are asking for monetary donations to help cover her medical bills, therapy, and upcoming surgeries.

Heather enjoys spending time with her family, including her husband Tommy and their 5 year old daughter. They are a very active family and love spending time outdoors together. Heather has already overcome so much in her life including having breast cancer at age 28 and not being able to have children. She knows that God is faithful. She was healed from breast cancer and has been cancer free for over 10 years. Her and her husband adopted their daughter and they have an open-adoption with her birth mom. Being parents to Kayla has brought them more joy than anything in their 11 years of marriage. Heather also loves working as an Early Intervention therapist at Easter Seals ECI program, and she is anxious to get back to doing her hearts work, working with children with special needs. She is overwhelmed by all the love and support she has received that has helped her come this far.”
Please pray for Heather and her family! And know that ANY amount will help with the rising  amount of unexpected medical bills and appreciated more than you’ll ever know! What a blessing you are to Heather and her family. Thank you so much!!!