Linh's Bad Blood
Donation protected
Please give Linh more time with the loves of her life, Jesse and Archer.
The story of bad blood starts when Linh was five. Born with rare Thalassemia type B major, her life relies on series of blood transfusions with a life-expectancy of 40 years. Never once letting the condition win and drag herself down, she came to America to find her own American dream. She found her soulmate. She had a chance to work at the First Starbucks store ever in Seattle. She got pregnant and things were looking so bright for them. Sadly, this is now the beginning of the tragic adventure.
November, 2018, when the pregnancy was at 28 weeks, unaware of a serious underlining pneumonia that has been going on for a week, Linh received a blood transfusion that quickly sent her to a septic shock following with a cardiac arrest and a Code Blue was pulled at that critical moment. While her heartbeats were dropping, little Archer was fighting for his life and grasping onto every piece of oxygen that he could. Thanks to the God-sent Angels at Swedish Hospital of Seattle, the situation was stabilized enough where an emergency delivery was not required at that moment. After multiple of antibiotic treatments, blood-transfusions and iron chelation therapies, everything started to look better and they all hope that Linh could go farther into the pregnancy to give Archer as much nutrition as she could. Yet, the unexpected strikes again.
December 22, 2018, Linh's spleen, which was overly enlarged due to her Thalassemia condition, torn and led to the internal bleeding that inevitably caused her so much pain and contractions started happening. Weighing out the risks of early delivery and the rupture of the spleen, the team of specialists had decided to do an emergency delivery to save both of their lives. They quickly gave her an epidural that eased her labor pain but unfortunately, would not help with her abdominal pains from the internal bleeding and poor little Archer could not tolerate these pain attacks. To ensure a safe delivery, they had to give her both epidural and morphine throughout the process.
Archer arrived at 34 weeks 5 days, weight 3lbs 8oz, falling into the first percentile. Little precious had been fighting strong and hard with his mom through two life-threatening emergencies now had to fight his own little first battle in the NICU. Good thing he is a strong little man, after celebrating his first Christmas and New Year Eve in the NICU, the staffs were impressed of how much he had advanced and finally, he was discharged.
It's now 8 months later and Linh is still battling with her condition. July 26th, another blood-transfusion that she much relied on to function had sent her to another reaction. She was admitted to Northwest Hospital of Seattle and with a drop of hematocrit level of 10% ( a normal adult hematocrit level should be ranging from 35%-45%). She was immediately transfused with more red blood cell units and plasmas, but all of them kept being hemolyzed (broken down). Multiple tests were sent to find out the cause, event to blood lab in New York but there were still no definite answer. Hematologists at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance along with doctors at the Northwest Hospital had work so hard to find a solution to this problematic case. Linh was tried for a 5-day course of Intravenous immunoglobulin therapy along with steroid. Luckily, her body positively responded to the therapy and slowly recovered. Though we still have not found a cause or a trigger to her transfusion reaction, more test and analysis are being intensively done to ensure this will not happen again.
After times and times of being so close to death, witnessing Jesse's tears dropped, slowly carrying his hope away, seeing little Archer's innocent smile not knowing how closed he was to losing his mom, Linh's only wish right now is to have more time with her boys.
We are desperate.
Jesse is our only financial support right now. Working minimum wage in Seattle with one of the highest living cost in the US, surviving day by day is already a challenging task for us. Our previous medical bills from December, our energy bills which are being audited now pilling up with the recent medical bill from July. At this point, we cannot keep going anymore with any treatment let alone a splenectomy that much needed to prevent a life-threatening spleen rupture that looming in Linh's near future.
Anything helps.
This is a long journey for our family to battle this cruel BAD BLOOD. Please join us for even just a short-while.
- Prayer: With such uncertainties, we could be one prayer away from another bad blood transfusion, another shock, another cardiac arrest.
- Medical expense: Linh's condition relies on constant blood-transfusions. The Intravenous Immunoglobulin therapy was estimated to be more than $20,000. Splenectomy (spleen removal surgery) is also expected in the near future to prevent a rupture that for sure will take her life away, which could cost more than $20,000. Along with the major treatment and therapy cost, hospital stay and specialist costs are yet to be included.
- Daily expense: every dollars could be a huge support to our family and big relief for Jesse. $5 could get Archer a week of diaper supplies or formulas. $10 could help us pay a part of our monthly $1250 rent or our utility bills that are so far behind.
- Share our story: we believe in miracles. We are living through miracles. Please share our love story, please let other know how beautiful our lives could be. We believe in the power of message and the kindness of our humanity.
"I want to fight the bad blood in me. I want to hold Jesse's hand during Archer's high school graduation and more. Please help us."
The story of bad blood starts when Linh was five. Born with rare Thalassemia type B major, her life relies on series of blood transfusions with a life-expectancy of 40 years. Never once letting the condition win and drag herself down, she came to America to find her own American dream. She found her soulmate. She had a chance to work at the First Starbucks store ever in Seattle. She got pregnant and things were looking so bright for them. Sadly, this is now the beginning of the tragic adventure.
November, 2018, when the pregnancy was at 28 weeks, unaware of a serious underlining pneumonia that has been going on for a week, Linh received a blood transfusion that quickly sent her to a septic shock following with a cardiac arrest and a Code Blue was pulled at that critical moment. While her heartbeats were dropping, little Archer was fighting for his life and grasping onto every piece of oxygen that he could. Thanks to the God-sent Angels at Swedish Hospital of Seattle, the situation was stabilized enough where an emergency delivery was not required at that moment. After multiple of antibiotic treatments, blood-transfusions and iron chelation therapies, everything started to look better and they all hope that Linh could go farther into the pregnancy to give Archer as much nutrition as she could. Yet, the unexpected strikes again.
December 22, 2018, Linh's spleen, which was overly enlarged due to her Thalassemia condition, torn and led to the internal bleeding that inevitably caused her so much pain and contractions started happening. Weighing out the risks of early delivery and the rupture of the spleen, the team of specialists had decided to do an emergency delivery to save both of their lives. They quickly gave her an epidural that eased her labor pain but unfortunately, would not help with her abdominal pains from the internal bleeding and poor little Archer could not tolerate these pain attacks. To ensure a safe delivery, they had to give her both epidural and morphine throughout the process.
Archer arrived at 34 weeks 5 days, weight 3lbs 8oz, falling into the first percentile. Little precious had been fighting strong and hard with his mom through two life-threatening emergencies now had to fight his own little first battle in the NICU. Good thing he is a strong little man, after celebrating his first Christmas and New Year Eve in the NICU, the staffs were impressed of how much he had advanced and finally, he was discharged.
It's now 8 months later and Linh is still battling with her condition. July 26th, another blood-transfusion that she much relied on to function had sent her to another reaction. She was admitted to Northwest Hospital of Seattle and with a drop of hematocrit level of 10% ( a normal adult hematocrit level should be ranging from 35%-45%). She was immediately transfused with more red blood cell units and plasmas, but all of them kept being hemolyzed (broken down). Multiple tests were sent to find out the cause, event to blood lab in New York but there were still no definite answer. Hematologists at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance along with doctors at the Northwest Hospital had work so hard to find a solution to this problematic case. Linh was tried for a 5-day course of Intravenous immunoglobulin therapy along with steroid. Luckily, her body positively responded to the therapy and slowly recovered. Though we still have not found a cause or a trigger to her transfusion reaction, more test and analysis are being intensively done to ensure this will not happen again.
After times and times of being so close to death, witnessing Jesse's tears dropped, slowly carrying his hope away, seeing little Archer's innocent smile not knowing how closed he was to losing his mom, Linh's only wish right now is to have more time with her boys.
We are desperate.
Jesse is our only financial support right now. Working minimum wage in Seattle with one of the highest living cost in the US, surviving day by day is already a challenging task for us. Our previous medical bills from December, our energy bills which are being audited now pilling up with the recent medical bill from July. At this point, we cannot keep going anymore with any treatment let alone a splenectomy that much needed to prevent a life-threatening spleen rupture that looming in Linh's near future.
Anything helps.
This is a long journey for our family to battle this cruel BAD BLOOD. Please join us for even just a short-while.
- Prayer: With such uncertainties, we could be one prayer away from another bad blood transfusion, another shock, another cardiac arrest.
- Medical expense: Linh's condition relies on constant blood-transfusions. The Intravenous Immunoglobulin therapy was estimated to be more than $20,000. Splenectomy (spleen removal surgery) is also expected in the near future to prevent a rupture that for sure will take her life away, which could cost more than $20,000. Along with the major treatment and therapy cost, hospital stay and specialist costs are yet to be included.
- Daily expense: every dollars could be a huge support to our family and big relief for Jesse. $5 could get Archer a week of diaper supplies or formulas. $10 could help us pay a part of our monthly $1250 rent or our utility bills that are so far behind.
- Share our story: we believe in miracles. We are living through miracles. Please share our love story, please let other know how beautiful our lives could be. We believe in the power of message and the kindness of our humanity.
"I want to fight the bad blood in me. I want to hold Jesse's hand during Archer's high school graduation and more. Please help us."
Organizer
Linh Nguyen
Organizer
Seattle, WA