Hello.

My name is Michelle and my husband is Claud. We have been married for almost 20 years and live in Western North Carolina.We've been through a lot in this life and never would we ever think we'd be faced with such an uphill battle. You see recently my husband was diagnosed with a rare lung disease. It's called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.Although he'd be happy to be a part of the elite club!! They're only about 240k people nationwide who share this disease. What it means is his lungs are continually scarring and hardening and cannot be reversed. You see currently there's no definitive reason that this disease starts and there's no definite cure to stop it. There's only medications that can slow the progression but the end result is still going to be the same. I believe part of the hardest part is knowing this gift comes from someone else's tragedy. For that we're eternally grateful and very sympathetic to the family. Thankfully there are persons who believe in organ donation just as both of us do. Unfortunately this mean's eventually he won't be able to breathe on his own. He's going to have to have a double lung transplant to save his life. Sadly this means that it's a very expensive procedure with a long recovery afterwards. You see we will actually have to live in closer proximity to Duke in Raleigh. He will need extreme aftercare and a slew of drugs to keep him alive. We are reaching out today to our friends our families and those who exude extreme kindness to others to help us achieve this beautiful amazing gift. We've always tried to do good by people and God but this is something we can't get to on our own. Claud and I are slightly middle aged and thought we would grow old together. He's my left brain.

He's my rock and my best friend

He's my protector and my partner in everything. Sadly I have friends who have lost their spouses and I don't want to be in that group. I simply can't imagine this life without him. We need to raise a lot of money and unfortunately we don't have a timeline

Right now it's all against the clock for us. We really want to thank each and everyone one of you and taking the time to help us reach our goal. It's literally life changing!!