Friday, January 13, 2012

On a Personal Note: My Brother

My younger brother Fred has a life-threatening heart condition and is going to undergo a stem cell treatment to save his life. As I’m sure you know with Heart Health Awareness month coming up in February, someone suffers a heart-related incident every 25 seconds and someone dies from a heart incident every minute. My brother is one of those statistics, suffering a “widowmaker” at the age of 36, receiving a pacemaker, and now, dying of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy.

At the end of this month my brother will be undergoing a harvesting, then reimplantation of his own stem cells, a treatment that has shown remarkable success in repairing everything from cardiac damage to macular degeneration. My family is having several fundraisers to try to raise the $60,000 needed to pay for the treatment. If you have a moment, could you say a prayer, or, if it's within your budget, consider giving to the fund we have set up for him.

The wonderful ladies at Harlequin Romance have a blog post up about it today. In addition, there is a Facebook page set up for him. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cardiac-Stem-Cell-Treatment/343112075705394?ref=ts


Donations can be given online at: http://www.giveforward.com/fredkawafund

Or mailed to:


Fred Kawa Jr. Heart Fund
c/o Hanscom Federal Credit Union
15 Kansas Street
Natick, MA 01760

Thank you all, and believe me, prayers are just as much appreciated as anything else. Hug a loved one today!

Shirley

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