Michele "Mamma" Constantino

My name is Patty. My daughters and I are fundraising for one of my best friends, Michele Constantino. Although she is too proud to ask for assistance, I have watched her struggle to pay her bills and make ends meet due to an overwhelming amount of medical bills from continuous serious health issues. Over the course of 10 years, she has been plagued by a series of serious surgeries all related to congenital disorders. She has received surgery for narrow angle glaucoma which still causes her to have serious headaches, open heart surgery to replace a valve in her heart, and surgery for a serious paraesophageal hernia. She has also been hospitalized many other times, needing multiple blood transfusions and a hysterectomy.

In all the years I've known Michele she has always been an amazing mother and friend and a very hard worker. Although she tries to continue to work , the "down time" from all of the operations and her pain limits what she can physically do. She is now receiving collection letters, liens, and summons and the bills continue to grow. I watch her struggle with the simplest of tasks because of the pain she is in.

Most recently, she was diagnosed with Klippel-Feil syndrome which is a rare disorder where two or more vertebrae in the neck are fused together from birth. This next surgery is to stabilize the cervical spine to correct the deformity and take the pressure off the spinal cord. She is in constant pain and because her spine is not aligned, it makes the surgery much more difficult and high risk. Please donate whatever you can and/or share the link to help relieve some of the financial burdens she faces. Please also keep Michelle in your prayers as she faces this battle. Thank you so much.