Rosa's medical fund

After a long, seemingly endless 6-year battle for a kidney transplant, on May 31st 2016, our mother, Rosa Naranjo, (46 years of age) finally received her highly anticipated and much overdue new kidney at the UC Davis Transplant Center. Although she did have a couple minor complications in the beginning, her body finally pulled through and her new kidney started working. For the first time in over 6 years she no longer needed dialysis 3x a week and was beyond without a shadow of a doubt able to live somewhat of a normal lifestyle again. For the first 3 months everything was going fine, it appeared our mother was past the hardest stages of the transplant process and each day her health was improving. This was not only a dream come true for our mother or my entire family but also any individual who had ever come into contact with her because she is a truly selfless person who is loved by all.

 Unfortunately, on September 7th our mother went to a local hospital with an extremely bad cough. Due to her transplant she was put on immunosuppressant’s, an anti rejection Medicine, so her body wouldn’t reject the kidney. This particular drug causes your immune system to shut down and basically vanish, which made it very easy for infection and bacteria to enter her body. The cough eventually turned into an awful case of pneumonia, which spread throughout her lungs and caused her to become drastically ill.  As time passed by the prescribed antibiotics weren’t helping and she was rapidly becoming worse and worse. Therefore, the doctors decided to increase the doses of medication to try and fight the infection, which unfortunately caused her blood pressure to drop significantly to an immensely unstable condition. The doctors began to fear she was beginning to go into cardiac arrest and for this reason they prescribed her heavy doses of suppressants to raise her blood pressure. However, once the doctors were finally able to stabilize her blood pressure and ease her off of the suppressants it wasn’t without consequence. The permanent damage to her health and future had already been established.

 On Friday September 9th she was transferred to UC Davis Hospital where the doctors were able to treat the pneumonia properly. However, due to the heavy doses of suppressants that she was previously prescribed at the initial hospital she lost blood circulation to her extremities; therefore, our mother had to undergo surgery on September 23rd to remove all of the dead tissue from her hands and feet. Unfortunately, to all of our grief the damage was beyond repair and required a second surgery for amputation on both arms at approximately her elbows as well as both legs at mid-calf. As if all of that wasn’t enough to mentally and physically handle she is additionally being treated for kidney and liver damage. It is still unsure how significant the damage to her liver and kidney is as of today but thankfully the UC Davis medical staff members are working around the clock to keep her organs alive.

 Rosa Naranjo is the definition of a hard working, selfless, independent woman of faith. She happily puts everyone before herself, has always helped anyone who has ever crossed her path, and the type of individual who unconditionally puts her family first. She would sacrifice anything for her two children and there is absolutely no word to describe the amount of love she has for her three grandchildren. We are extremely privileged to be able to say she is our mother and beyond proud to call her our best friend.

 It would be greatly appreciated if everyone could please keep her in your prayers as our family continues to get through this extremely difficult time. Sadly, we’re unsure how long she will have to remain in the hospital or how long her recovery process will take. During this hard time we are reaching out to everyone who could help her going forward. One hundred percent of the donations will be used for her medical expenses. Rosa’s personal goal is to be able to walk on her own and live as independent of a lifestyle as possible and we are hoping that with the help of prosthetics in the next year she will be able to do so.  We will continue with updates as we proceed with her recovery. Thank you all so much for your support, our family appreciates it from the bottom of our hearts!