About Rachel:

Rachel was born with a congenital defect called Symbrachydactyly and has only two fingers on her left hand. With the help of Scottish Rite Hospital, She began having surgeries at the age of 5 to improve the function of the fingers. She has had a finger lengthening surgery, then removal of the end of the finger as it was too long and poking through the skin. They removed tiny partial fingers that were in the way and a surgery to bend her thumb as she is missing a knuckle. With years of surgeries, hard work and therapy, she was able to use both hands for her entire life and have never let it slow her down.

After years of overuse, the hand is no longer usable, and she became one handed. In September she had surgery to repair the damage to her hand but it was only partially successful. She will need a prosthetic hand to remain two handed. She has worked her whole life to make the most of what she has and teach herself to do everything anyone else could do despite her disability.

Currently Rachel is working tirelessly with a hand therapist 3x a week to regain any movement at all from her thumb. She does hours of home therapy as well to improve her situation. She may be forced to amputate the thumb if she is unable to heal and protect the thumb. Wearing a prosthetic will help preserve what she has left.

Cost:

Rachel’s health insurance will not cover the cost of the prosthetic, so she has to pay out of pocket. She is unable to work anymore due to multiple serious rare genetic diseases and has been fighting for over a year to get disability. She lives with her retired Mother so she has no additional financial resources.

She is working with a top rated prosthetics company to create a functional hand with usable prosthetic fingers.

Any donation would be greatly appreciated. The cost for the prosthetic is estimated at $40,000 and I’m trying to raise at least half, $20,000.

Please help Rachel get the Terminator hand of her dreams.