Helping a Mother in Need — Caring for Her Sick Daughter

I’m reaching out to help a fellow mother, Tamara who has fallen on hard times. After months of mounting medical bills and the need to be home full-time to care for her daughter, she’s been unable to work more than part-time now and is struggling to make ends meet while searching for a new WFH position.

This fundraiser is to help ease some of the financial burden so she can focus on what matters most — her daughter’s health and healing — without the constant stress of wondering how to cover basic expenses. Every donation, no matter the amount, will make a difference and bring much-needed relief to this devoted mom and her family.

Thank you for your kindness and support. ❤️

For those who don't know Mikayla's story, she's a beautiful, intelligent 22 yr old born with a congenital heart defect with prior surgical intervention who had also had a stroke while still in utero. Her medical history is quite complex.

Three years ago she began experiencing pain, arrhythmias, tachycardia and difficulty breathing. It took another 2 years to diagnose the condition and an additional year of her mom, Tamara, fighting insurance every day for approval for an out of network surgery because there just wasn't a Cardiologist in network who had ever performed the surgery she needed to make repairs to slow down her heart rate. A surgery needed within 4-6 weeks of diagnosis to avoid cardiomyopathy. It's not common in adults but it is among the pediatric population with congenital defects; it's about 1:250. To complicate matters further, Mikayla's medical is complex involving seizures and rheumatology too that preclude her from the normal course of treatment. Surgery was her only option in order to return a normal life but it needed to be done quickly.

UCLA requested she be immediately moved temporarily to straight Medi-Cal but she was denied because she had her insurance for 90 days. That's the hill they were willing to allow her to die upon. Tamara reached out multiple times to all her representatives - Governor Newsom, Mayor Bass, Supervisor Hahn, Ted Lieu, Ben Allen and Al Muratsuchi to intervene and to use their discretionary powers for good - all ignored her pleas.

As her symptoms progressed, nine months after diagnosis she was finally approved for surgery on April 25, 2025! Hurray!! Then just before surgery, insurance pulled the rug out from under her, they had canceled the surgery without notification, ammended the authorization to a different hospital with a surgeon who had already refused the surgery because it was beyond the scope of his practice. Mind you this was many cardiologists later as they jumped through each insurance hoop. Unbeknownst to them, the insurance company sent the amendment to an unknown address for unknown reasons. Just days before the surgery is when they learned about the cancelation from a friend who went to make a direct blood donation for her surgery because Mikayla also has the rarest blood type, AB- . The donor was told she was no longer on the surgery schedule. Can you imagine?

Mikayla was immediately rescheduled by UCLA to the next available date of July 10, 2025. Thus began another daily, full-time fight by Tamara for the out of network approval. A doctor of internal medicine, not a cardiologist, who sits on the insurance board unilaterally overrode the opinion of four cardiologists and refused a peer to peer review.

All the while Mikayla was often in pain, exhausted, unable to work, go to school or be left alone for any length of time for fear of sudden cardiac death or another stroke. Often sleeping 15-20 hours a day. Mom couldn't be two places at once and was reduced to working part-time. Her resting heart rate remained high and would spike to 180 and over 200 simply by walking and even in her sleep. Her heart rate doesn't just sit high or spike to 180-200 it also dips down to 42-50 into bradycardia while she's awake and moving - sometimes even moments after a tachycardia episode. She couldn't even sit/stand up from lying/sitting down or walk around without passing out/collapsing. As more time passed, Mikayla genuinely looked and felt like a corpse and everyone was constantly terrified she'd drop dead when breathing is difficult. When she was good, she was good but the next moment or day, she wasn't all complicated by seizures that follow. Maggie, her service dog, is her saving grace when at home. (That's another Oprah.)

No mother should be forced to choose between her child, rent and bills. She learned Los Angeles hasn't funded any homeless prevention programs for Americans since 2022. Mikayla has great, loyal, cpr certified and AED trained friends who have helped to look after her too as they don't have any family in state to help. Her mom finally won the battle after several appeals and 3 court hearings for approval for the out of network surgery at UCLA. As Tamara sat at her kitchen table praying to God, that final approval came five minutes before the surgery would've been canceled again! Praise God and praise those prayer warriors!

Since surgery Mikayla has made some progress but not nearly enough to be left alone for any period of time. Her heart rate has slowed some but she remains in tachycardia causing damage. As a result of the extended delay, she does have additional damage to the heart. In the months following surgery she has been placed on a new but expensive heart failure medication considered a pacemaker current inhibitor. Tamara also works to secure the appointments of four additional specialists who are all booked three to seven months out. It's still going to be a long road ahead as medication will likely cause downstream complications. All of this was completely avoidable and unnecessary.

Every prayer is much welcomed. We feel you and thank you from the bottom of our hearts.