Rachel Wild Colombini Heart Fund

Rachel Wild Colombini
needs your help
Rachel needs a Heart Valve replaced The cost of surgery and expenses could exceed $200,000.00

Rachel was born with a congenital heart defect which for the first 35 years of her life was quite easily controlled by medication. Unfortunately 3 years ago she contracted Bacterial endocarditis a life threatening infection that spread to the heart valve. Endocarditis damages the valve even further and 1 in 4 patients even with treatment die from the disease. Rachel was treated in 2007 for this and made a recovery although the valve suffered lesions due to the infection.

Unfortunately patients who have had this infection once are increasingly susceptible to recurrent infections.
The bad new is that on April 26th 2010 Rachel was hospitalized during a tour of the UK due to emboli in the hands and feet (a symptom of endocarditis) and was confirmed as having the infection again.

Aldo & Rachel took an emergency flight back to the US after canceling over a month of work and Rachel was again hospitalized and a catheter placed in her arm with a direct line to the top of the heart for daily infusions of antibiotic for the next 5 to 6 weeks.
Whist in the hospital the cardiologists have advised that another bout of this infection could be fatal and that valve replacement is necessary.

Although Rachel and Aldo do have some limited health insurance the cost of open heart surgery and everything this would entails plus loss of work puts this option out of reach at the moment and they are just crossing their fingers that they can delay things as long as possible which is a little frightening under the circumstances