My name is Kelsey (Sheakley) Johnson. I come to you, our family, friends, and community to humbly ask for financial support, prayers, good vibes, anything you can give, for my beautiful sister Norma Sheakley.

Norma is a mother, daughter, sister, auntie, niece, and friend too many. She is devoted to her Tlingit and Haida culture, always ready to learn and share her knowledge, whether it's about subsistence, politics, or the arts. Her current passion being dying & weaving cedar roses.

She is a single mother of two who has been struggling with health issues for a number of years now. She has had a couple strokes that were misdiagnosed and has affected her over the years and still effect her today.

But at this time, we want to share with you her recent health concerns.

Norma is in severe heart failure. She was recently medivacted to St. Josephs' in Bellingham, Washington where she will continue to be until she is stable.

An issue that is contributing to norma not recovering as quickly, her heart is very weak, and it is trying to work hard to pump her blood, but also that her liver has scar tissue. It is possible that the scar tissue is caused from her autoimmune disease.

So although her heart is trying to work to pump blood, her liver cannot filter the blood as quickly, which causes a build up of fluid in her abdomen. At the hospital they can tap her stomach to remove the the fluid(which they have done), but until everything starts working more efficiently, the fluid will just keep building up again and again.

It has been decided that Norma will currently stay at the hospital in Bellingham until she is stable. Then she will out patient and stay with our aunt near by. She will continue to see her heart doctor there, then she will eventually go to UW.

At UW she will see both heart and liver specialist. She may be getting an artificial heart valve, known as an LVAD. And then be placed on a heart transplant list. There was mention of a liver transplant list as well, but I believe the current focus is the heart.

As I am asking for donations, please know that these donations will help pay her bills, support her kids, and hopefully help with travel for family to go see her an be by her side. At this time there is no estimate of how long she will have to remain in Washington.

We will know more as time goes on and I will continue to update.

If you can please reach out to norma with any kind words, via phone call, text, facebook, fb messenger, or even audio messages on fb messenger. I know she can use all the love and support that she can get. If she is someone you love and you are in the area please reach out to go see my sister. If you have been in the hospital you know how lonely and challenging it can be.

Please pray for strength for her physically and mentally to overcome this incredibly challenging situation.

Thank you for your time.