|
 |
> Features > Health & Fitness > While waiting for a liver, friends help family live
While waiting for a liver, friends help family live
|
| |
|
Don and Phyllis Chretien were forced to leave their home in Springfield and relocate to Jacksonville, Fla., to be near the Mayo Clinic should a liver become available to Don for a transplant. Reminder Publications submitted photo
|
By Natasha Clark
Assistant Managing Editor
SPRINGFIELD Of all the things that can befall a person in their lifetime, the Chretien family is going through a heavy load all at once, without one complaint. Though a cloud is hovering above them at the moment they still keep their eyes set on an optimistic outcome and there is a silver lining their friends.
About six of them have gotten together to help bring some financial relief to a couple Pauline Beaulieu said "are always there for their friends and loved ones and have helped many work through difficult times."
Don Chretien and his wife Phyllis were forced to leave behind their friends, family and home in order to give him a chance to live.
A few years ago Chretien was diagnosed with end-stage liver disease caused by chronic viral hepatitis C. His health has been steadily on the decline and in the last year has reached a critical state of deterioration. He is need of a liver transplant.
"Don has not been able to work for well over a year. He was on the [transplant] list in Boston and he was way down on the list," Beaulieu, who is overseeing a fundraising campaign for the Chretiens, explained. "My neighbor had a liver transplant, a successful one, and through him we got together and spoke with Don and Phyllis and this is how they made the right contacts and ended going to Florida in Jacksonville."
Last November, the Chretiens left their Springfield home in order to live next to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. Chretien has been added to the waiting list and lives in close proximity to the clinic until a matching donor's liver is available. Of course, when a liver will become available is an unpredictable happening.
"They made the decision with the approval of their insurance company to go there hoping that they would [receive a liver] in several months or so. They left their home here. She left her job. He hadn't been working for a while. He is too ill to work," Beaulieu said.
As the Chretiens wait optimistically for a liver transplant, financial responsibilities continue to pile up. Though he recently received a call from the Mayo Clinic stating that a liver may be available, it ended up going to another patient.
"This past Christmas I went there to visit and stayed a couple of days and that is when it was very obvious to me, their situation," Beaulieu said. "I kind of had some time alone with [Phyllis] and that's when she broke down. They are living off of a credit card."
Because Chretien's medications alternate, one week they can cost $300 and the following up to $500 with insurance. Besides the responsibilities of their house back home in Springfield, they have to pay $2,500 a month to rent their two-room apartment in Jacksonville.
Beaulieu said when she came home she mentioned their circumstances to her husband and decided to contact some friends.
The Chretiens had developed a friendship with a woman whose daughter was in need of a transplant. The daughter, who was in her early twenties, was facing her second transplant. She died. Beaulieu said she wanted to help the Chretiens but didn't know where to start so she figured the mother of the young woman might be a good place.
"I had no clue how to go about it," Beaulieu said.
With the the woman's help, Beaulieu, Dennis Wassung Jr., Yvonne Grondin, Bev Tremblay, Patti Ahern, Darlene Federici and Luci Giguere established a fund through the National Transplant Assistance Fund (NTAF) for Chretien's uninsured medical expenses.
They host meetings once a month to discuss fundraising options and wanted to get the Chretiens' story out in the hopes that others might help. So far $1,000 has been raised. Beaulieu said any donation at all is greatly appreciated.
"They have a home here that they had to take out a second mortgage on. Whatever funds they saved are gone," she said.
Anyone interested in making a donation can make a check payable to NTAF Northeast Liver Transplant Fund. On the memo line include "In Honor of Don Chretien." Checks can be mailed to National Transplant Assistance Fund, 150 N. Radnor Chester Rd., Suite F-120, Radnor, PA 19087.
For more information contact Beaulieu at pauline4@comcast.net.
|
|
|
|
|
