Timo and Jana’s Journey

My name is Timo, I migrated with my wife Jana to Australia in 2008, with big dreams, and a vision of building a better life and start a family. When we arrived, we were drawn to the affordable house prices and the opportunity for a fresh start. As a qualified motor mechanic, I had always dreamed of owning my own workshop. Soon after settling in, I met Manfred, another German migrant who was looking to sell his workshop. Manfred was ready to retire, and I saw it as the chance of a lifetime. With our new life in Australia taking shape, we were thrilled to welcome our first child, Vanessa. But life, as we soon discovered, is rarely straightforward.

Despite our hard work and determination, my health began to falter two years after we arrived, when I was diagnosed with heart failure. My heart started to fail; my ejection fraction dropped to a critical 9% while a healthy heart has an ejection fraction between 50% and 70%. With medication, it was stabilized at 35%, but I knew my physical limitations were now part of my reality. Determined not to let my diagnosis define me, I made an audacious decision: To go to University to study mechanical engineering. It wasn’t easy as I had been away from education for more than 10 years, and I was now studying in a second language. But I pushed forward, driven by the hope that education could be the key to a better future for me and my family.

While I pursued my studies, our family grew with the birth of our second daughter, Larissa. Even as my heart failure continued to progress, I persevered and completed my Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering with Honors.

But just as I was beginning to see the fruits of my labor, my health continued to deteriorate which required me to undergo heart transplant surgery in 2019.

The first few months were perilous, the high immunosuppressants I had to take to prevent my body from rejecting the new heart left me vulnerable to infection. It was during this time that I developed a dangerous fungal infection in my lungs called aspergillosis, which took six long months to cure. The antifungal treatment made me feel nauseous and weak, but I never gave up. I pushed through, determined to get better. At the start of 2020, just as I was recovering from the heart transplant, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. My world, already crumbling under the weight of multiple health challenges, seemed to collapse even further. But once again, I fought back. I underwent a total thyroidectomy, which fortunately cured my cancer.

More determined than ever I went to the gym, hoping to regain some strength, but my body didn’t cooperate. Even two years after the heart transplant, I found it nearly impossible to climb stairs. The doctors ran more tests and eventually diagnosed me with muscular dystrophy, a progressive condition that causes muscle loss and weakness. It was a blow that crushed my spirit. I had spent my entire life taking care of my body, eating healthy, exercising regularly, and pushing myself to stay fit. Now, I was facing a disease that slowly, but surely, made walking and climbing stairs increasingly difficult, and made it impossible to live the active life I had once cherished. The realization that there was no cure for muscular dystrophy hit me hard. My body, once my greatest asset, had become my greatest challenge. My mental and emotional strength began to waver. My health goals, my dreams of riding my mountain bike for hours like I used to, seemed out of reach. The diagnosis felt like a death sentence to my spirit.

But just as I was grappling with all these challenges, another blow came: Jana, my beloved wife, suffered a heart attack at just 49 years old, which required her to have a stent inserted into one of the arteries in her heart, which was blocked to 80%. At the same time, she also had pneumonia which prolonged her recovery. While still struggling to recover, a year later, she faced another setback: appendix removal, which entailed removal of 30 cm of her colon due to inflammation. This surgery led to complications and caused the development of an incisional hernia which required another surgery. She underwent this surgery in September of 2024, Jana is still recovering from this surgery.

Through all of this, Jana has been the pillar of our family, trying to hold everything together, even as her own health deteriorated. Once a vibrant presence in our family and our cleaning business, Jana was now sidelined, her spirit weighed down by the enormity of our situation. Still, her strength has been tested beyond measure. Her father passed away in 2021, leaving Jana to cope with her grief and mounting challenges alone. I, too, had to face the loss of my own dreams and hopes for the future. Soon after we settled in our new country, everything started to fall apart, and we had to face all these challenges without much help at all. This situation has been, and still is, especially hard for our children. They hardly had any fun activities or holidays in their lives.

Our family is now at a crossroads. Dreams that once felt so tangible—owning a workshop, raising our children in good health, buying our own house while living a fulfilling life—have been shattered. We are struggling emotionally, financially, and physically. But we are not giving up. For now, Jana is not able to continue working in her cleaning business as she needs to recover fully before she can do any more demanding physical work.

Today, we need your help. We have fought through so much, and yet, we continue to push forward. The ongoing treatments and daily struggles have become too much for us to bear alone. Your donation can make a difference. It can help ease our financial burden and give us the chance to rebuild our lives. Every contribution, no matter how small, brings us one step closer to hope, one step closer to finding a way to heal. Our journey is full of perseverance, love, and determination. We are a family who has faced the unimaginable and yet continue to stand together. With your support, we can begin to rebuild our shattered dreams and move forward with hope in our hearts. Please donate today and help us fight for a better future.