Hello, my name is Karisa and I never thought I would be writing something like this. I am fundraising for my Sister Aliisa.

Liisa is a young woman who should be in the prime of her life. She has always been the one who opens her heart, her hands, and even her home to others. She has taken in strangers with nowhere to go, opened her doors to families in crisis, and helped raise other people’s children when those parents were struggling just to survive themselves. She feeds and clothes the homeless, helps friends, family and strangers financially even when she herself is struggling. She gives everything she has without ever asking for recognition.

She has always been the helper.

Now, she is fighting for her life.

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️How This All Began — A Timeline of a Medical Crisis

Early December when she should have been looking forward to the upcoming holidays with loved ones she unknowingly became critically ill with Influenza A. She knew something wasn’t right and this was not just the common cold and took herself by ambulance twice to a local hospital for help and was sent home both times after being treated poorly. The second time leaving with a hydrocodone cough syrup prescription and a “possible bronchitis” diagnosis and was advised to “get some rest”. I didn’t hear from her for nearly 24 hours after that and knew something was wrong . I had our cousin gain access into her home where I knew once I saw her it was time to call 911 for a third time. Instead of improving, her condition rapidly deteriorated into severe pneumonia, which then progressed into necrotizing pneumonia, a devastating condition where lung tissue begins to die.

• Her lungs could no longer properly exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide, leading to respiratory acidosis, meaning toxic levels of carbon dioxide were building up in her blood because her lungs were failing.

• At the same time, her body entered metabolic acidosis, where dangerous acids accumulated in her bloodstream due to organ failure and severe infection.

• She also developed ketoacidosis, a life-threatening metabolic state that further destabilized her blood chemistry and placed enormous stress on every organ system.

This combination of respiratory and metabolic acidosis is extremely dangerous and often fatal. Her body was essentially drowning internally in acid while fighting overwhelming infection. What started as the flu became a nightmare. Her blood chemistry became so dangerous that her brain, heart, and organs were at risk of shutting down.

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A Fight Measured in Hours, Not Days

She was admitted to the local hospital’s ICU and placed on a ventilator as her lungs completely failed.

Even that wasn’t enough.

Her oxygen levels stayed critically low despite the maximum support the local hospital’s ICU had to offer. Doctors were forced to escalate to ECMO, a last-resort machine that takes over the job of the heart and lungs and is offered in a Toronto Hospital ICU, She was then rushed by ORNGE. ECMO is used only when death is otherwise imminent.

• ECMO is extraordinarily rare

• Even in ICUs, it’s uncommon

• Requiring ECMO places someone among the sickest fraction of patients anywhere

• < 0.01% of all hospital admissions globally

• Only specialized tertiary hospitals can offer it

• Most doctors will see very few ECMO cases in their careers

Her kidneys shut down.

She required dialysis to remove toxins and fluid just to stay alive.

She suffered cardiac complications that required emergency intervention. Her heart stopped and she required resuscitation.

Every system in her body has been affected. Every gain has come with the risk of another devastating setback.

As her immune system collapsed under the weight of critical illness, she also developed a fungal infection in her lungs—a rare and extremely serious complication.

Fungal lung infections are especially dangerous because:

• They occur when the body is already failing

• They can rapidly destroy lung tissue

• They are difficult to treat and slow to respond

• They dramatically increase mortality in ICU patients

So she wasn’t just fighting the flu or pneumonia—she was fighting viral, bacterial, and fungal infections simultaneously, while her organs were shutting down.

There were moments we were told she might not survive the night.

As if that weren’t enough:

• She developed serious bloodstream and lung infections

• She battled C. difficile, a severe and dangerous intestinal infection

• A tumor on her thyroid was discovered, complicating her airway and surgical planning

• She required preparation for a tracheostomy because her body could not breathe on its own for a prolonged period.

During this preparation it was discovered that her tracheostomy is especially dangerous because her airway anatomy is not normal. Imaging shows a major blood vessel crossing directly in front of her trachea, and the thyroid tumor distorts the area where the airway would normally be accessed.

This means:

• The risk of catastrophic bleeding is higher

• The airway is harder to safely reach

• There is very little margin for error

• Any complication could be fatal while she is already critically ill

This is not a routine procedure. It is one more life-threatening hurdle in a fight that has already pushed her body beyond what most people could survive.

This has not been a straight path toward recovery. It has been one crisis after another, each one capable of taking her life.

This has not been a smooth recovery. It has been setback after setback, each one threatening her life all over again.

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❤️‍ The Reality: Survival Is Not Guaranteed

We are living hour by hour. Day by day.

Even now, the outcome is uncertain.

If she survives—and we are praying with everything we have that she does—her life will never be the same. The damage to her lungs, kidneys, and body may be permanent. Recovery will take months to years, not weeks.

She faces:

• Long-term lung damage and respiratory rehabilitation

• Ongoing kidney monitoring and possible continued dialysis

• Extensive physical therapy after prolonged immobility

• Countless specialist appointments and medications

• Trauma recovery from a prolonged ICU stay

• Permanent changes to how her body functions

• A future that is completely unknown

She cannot work. She cannot plan. She cannot even speak for herself right now.

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Why We Are Asking for Help

My sister has spent her life helping others—often at her own expense.

She has:

• Opened her home to strangers with nowhere to go

• Taken in entire families during their darkest moments

• Helped raise other people’s children when parents were struggling

• Fed and clothed the homeless

• Given money, time, and physical help whenever someone needed it

She never hesitated. She never asked for recognition. She just gave—because that’s who she is.

Now, the person who has always helped everyone else is the one who needs help the most. And that is why this hurts so deeply.

This GoFundMe is to support her with:

• Basic living expenses while she cannot work

• Medical and rehabilitation costs not fully covered

• Transportation costs to countless medical appointments

• The financial burden of rebuilding her life after critical illness

She does not have a partner to lean on. She has no children advocating for her. What she has is family, friends, and hopefully a community willing to lift her the way she has lifted so many others.

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This is not an exaggeration. This is not a setback. This is not something she will “bounce back” from quickly. This is a catastrophic medical crisis that has pushed her body to the absolute brink of survival—and we are still living in uncertainty every single day.

We don’t know what tomorrow holds.

What we do know is that she is still fighting. And she deserves the chance to heal without added weight and financial fear of losing everything she has worked for simply because she got sick.

If you can donate, share, or keep her in your prayers, please know that it means more than words can ever express.

If you have made it this far from

the bottom of our hearts Thank you! Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring. Thank you for helping us support a special woman who has spent her life supporting others and Thank you for standing with her in the fight of her life.