Shelby’s Journey for a Cure!

Hi, my name is Bridgette and Michelle is my work wife and best friend. Michelle and Adam are about to embark on a long journey in the hopes of curing their daughter of Thalassemia. Adam has recently changed jobs and is not able to take off work. Michelle will be staying with Shelby in Philadelphia as she under goes treatment and will be unable to work. The family’s income will

dramatically be impacted.

We’re hoping that raising funds to offset Michelle’s loss of income both during Shelby’s treatment and thereafter as she won’t be able to return to work full time for quite some time to attend to Shelby’s continual medical needs after they are discharged from the hospital.

Additionally, they will have a lot of out of pocket expenses. Some we know like travel and food expenses while in Philadelphia and some are unknown as they move forward with Shelby’s treatment.

About the journey:

Shelby (age 7) was born with a genetic blood condition requiring blood transfusions every 2-3 weeks (Beta Thalassemia). Adopted at 2 she promptly began treatment at CHOP. One of the biggest life threatening components of Beta Thalassemia is iron overload effecting multiple organs. For 4 years Shelby’s iron was kept in check with daily medicine until the side effects became too strong. Then she switched to a nightly medicine and despite best efforts, her iron overload continued to increase exponentially. Shelby will be going through Gene Therapy with the hope of decreasing or discontinuing the need for transfusions! This will help her iron levels decrease and greatly reduce the amount of trips to the hospital. Gene Therapy is much like a stem cell transplant and requires intense chemo and a 6-8 week hospital stay with isolation at home after. Shelby will start chemo in June.

Please donate as you can so that Michelle and Adam’s only burden is to be there to love on and support Shelby Jane.