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Do you already own all the Lung Girl comics and merchandise? We have some great news for you! Lung Girl is taking over our newsletters! Along with the usual updates about our projects and events, we will now include a Lung Girl cartoon in every newsletter. You can follow her adventures with Ecmo every month. This is a great way to keep up with her until the next comic book comes out! We know you need more Lung Girl in your life, so subscribe to our newsletter now!
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 The care packages are ready and have already been sent out to lung transplant patients around the country! Check out this video to see what's in them: Our care packages come in a dark blue Sid Foundation drawstring bag with multiple compartments. They include:
1.) A spirometer 2.) Pill organizer 3.) Woolen socks 4.) Face masks 5.) Neutrogena SPF 70 sunscreen 6.) Leather journal 7.) Lung Girl Comic issue #1 8.) Stickers: I <3 My New Lungs, Lung Girl, and The Sid Foundation. 9.) Congratulations Card! We just sent these out to the University of Kentucky Hospital Lung Transplant Program to help their lung transplant patients get a smoother start into their new journey. We are dedicating these care packages to the memory of lung transplant patient Prasha Tuladhar. She helped us put these packages together months before she passed away. She was an inspiration to many and a beautiful person. We are eternally grateful for her help. If you are a lung transplant patient, contact us so we can send you one. If you work at a hospital that performs lung transplant surgeries in the United States, contact us so we can send them for your patients. If you would like to donate your products for this project, contact us. Email: info@thesidfoundation.org If you would like to donate to this project, go to our "Donate" page. A HUGE thank you to our corporate donor Kriya Capital for sponsoring these. Thank you to our generous individual donors for funding these as well.  If you have been keeping up with our growing Lung Transplant Patient Support Program, you know that we are launching our Care Package program this year.
What is the Care Package? We are putting together care packages for lung transplant patients around the country. These packages include essentials that a lung transplant patient needs for everyday life after a transplant. Many of these are essential items that health insurance may not cover like a spirometer or face masks. What is in the Care Package? The care package includes:
How do lung transplant patients receive a Care Package? We are partnering with hospitals that perform lung transplant surgeries to get these packages to the patients. We are putting together the packages and sending them to different hospitals. The hospitals will give out the care packages to lung transplant patients when they are being discharged. Currently, we are working with the University of Kentucky Hospital Lung Transplant Program. We hope to work with many more hospitals soon! Lung Transplant patients can also contact us directly if they are interested in receiving a package and we will send it to them. How can you help? If you are not a lung transplant patient, you can help by donating to our Lung Transplant Patient Support Program so that more lung transplant patients can have the necessary tools they need to beat the statistics and thrive. If you work at a hospital that performs lung transplant surgeries, you can help us partner with your hospital so we can get these care packages into the hands of more lung transplant patients. If you work for a company that makes any of the products listed above, please contact us and help us get these items at a discounted rate or as donations so we can help as many lung transplant patients as possible with our limited budget. If you are a lung transplant patient, you can help by spreading the word and contacting us and requesting a care package for yourself! We are very excited to get this new program off the ground and are grateful to partner with the University of Kentucky Hospital Lung Transplant Program! We are also grateful for our corporate sponsor, Kriya Capital, for funding this program! If you have questions about this program or would like to help, please feel free to email us at info@thesidfoundation.org.
We hope you all have a wonderful 2019. Today, January 2nd is the 34th birthday of Sid Vahal. If you haven't gotten to know Sid yet, you can learn about him here. He is the inspiration behind this nonprofit. On this special day, we want to recap what we have accomplished in 2018 and share our 2019 goals with you. In 2018 we... 1.) Launched our Lung Transplant Patient Support Program. 2.) Donated over $5,000 to lung transplant patients to help them with medical bills. 3.) Connected with our community at fun events such as Mini Con. 4.) Donated $5,000 to the University of Kentucky Healthcare Lung Transplant Program to support lung transplant research. 5.) Began working on the Lung Girl Animation Series script. 6.) Worked on the Lung Girl #3 comic book. We surpassed many of our goals such as setting up the patient support program and raising thousands of dollars to help lung transplant patients with medical bills. However, we did have some goals that went unfinished. We had to push back the Lung Girl Animation series due to a lack of time and funding. We were unable to send Lung Girl #3 to the printer before the end of 2018. But, we are proud of all that we have accomplished in 2018 and excited to continue to build in 2019. In 2019 we will... 1.) Publish the Lung Girl #3 comic book. 2.) Begin working on the Lung Girl #4 comic book. 3.) Continue growing our Lung Transplant Patient Support Program by launching the "care package" project. 4.) Donate between $5000-$7000 to the University of Kentucky Healthcare Lung Transplant Program. 5.) Apply for more grants to increase funding. If you would like to help us reach any of our goals in 2019, please email us at info@thesidfoundation.org. None of our accomplishments would have been possible without our generous donors, volunteers, and sponsors. THANK YOU!
Thank you to all of you who have donated to help Stephanie Buswell pay medical bills as she goes through her lung transplant process.
In just one month, you have donated over $3,000 for Stephanie! How Will Your Donations Help? Stephanie is planning to use these funds to help with medical bills that include her copay for doctor visits and other bills that come about during her transplant process. By donating, you have made Stephanie's journey a little bit less stressful. Once again thank you all for supporting Stephanie! About Stephanie To learn more about Stephanie's journey, click here. Donate If you haven't donated yet, click on the link below. Reach Out If you are a lung transplant patient or are about to receive a lung transplant, reach out to us so we can help you on your journey! You can learn more about our Lung Transplant Patient Support Program here. Once again, thank you for all your donations and support! 
“After I receive this double lung transplant I hope just the everyday living tasks are a lot easier. Just being able to spending my life making countless memories with my children without the struggle to breathe.” Stephanie is a 32 year old Cystic Fibrosis (CF) patient who is in need of a double lung transplant. She was diagnosed with CF when she was 6 weeks old and has had many complications along the way. Stephanie was an athlete and dancer during her childhood. Her active lifestyle kept her CF symptoms at bay for most of her school years. However, when she was a senior in high school, she was hospitalized for the first time. After high school her CF continued to worsen especially after she became pregnant with her first child at 22. The weight she gained from her first pregnancy made it difficult for her lungs to function properly. Her second pregnancy made her life even more difficult. Although she had two healthy children without CF, her health took a turn for the worse. Stephanie is now raising her two children with only 20% lung function. Everyday tasks like playing with her children are extremely difficult for her and she spends much of her time taking breathing treatments during the day. She also stopped working at her job as a medical billing and coder and give up many hobbies such as swimming, traveling, and dancing. In 2018 alone she has been hospitalized 5 times. She was put on oxygen 24/7 and on a feeding tube to help her gain weight. Following her last serious hospitalization episode, her doctors began the process of getting her ready for a double lung transplant. Without it, they said, she has about two more years to live. Despite all of the hardships, Stephanie is hopeful about the future. “After I receive this double lung transplant I hope just the everyday living tasks are a lot easier. Just being able to spending my life making countless memories with my children without the struggle to breathe.” She also has some inspiring words and advice for others living with CF. “I’d just like to let anyone who is fighting this disease [know] to never give up [and] always have hope. I have beaten the odds past my life expectancy of 18, [and] was told I couldn’t conceive or even birth a child. I’m very blessed with two very healthy cystic fibrosis free kids. Never let anyone tell you that you won’t or can’t. Believe in yourself and just keep fighting!” Stephanie plans to use the funds donated for medical bills her insurance doesn’t cover such as co-pays and other post-transplant care. 
You can help Stephanie on her road to a double lung transplant by donating here: The Sid Foundation donated $3000 to the University of Kentucky Hospital Lung Transplant Program at the end of 2017 to fund lung transplant research. Here is the research we funded:  Here is a summary of the research written by the UK Healthcare team: "The generous gift from the Sid Foundation was used in two parts. First, funds were used to support research investigating the correlation between bacteria and organ rejection in post-lung transplant patients. Their research revealed a greater need for broad spectrum antibiotics at the time of donor brain death in order to limit harmful, life threatening bacteria and increase survival rates among lung transplant patients. Tangential research will allow for more advocacy in this arena, with the ultimate goal of limiting pathogenic bacteria and improving the life span of lung transplant patients. This research was presented at the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation in Niece, France. The investigators presented the attached poster. An abstract is below. Impact of Donor Lung Pathogenic Bacteria on Patient Outcomes in the Immediate Post-transplant Period Abstract: Lung transplantation is an effective treatment for advanced pulmonary diseases refractory to medical therapy. However, patient outcomes after lung transplantation are suboptimal compared to other solid organs. In fact, the median survival for all adult recipients is only 5.7 years. A major cause of death within the first 30 days post-transplant is the graft failure-mediated acute lung injury known as primary graft dysfunction (PGD). PGD has been associated with increased mortality, a longer duration of mechanical ventilation, and poor functional outcomes. Additionally, acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common consequence of lung transplantation. Associated with increased morbidity and mortality, it has been known to prolong both hospitalization as well as the need for mechanical ventilation postoperatively). Finally, the need for mechanical ventilation in the immediate postoperative period exposes lung transplant patients to the various risks associated with positive pressure ventilation – such as gastrointestinal hemorrhage, neuromuscular dysfunction, and ventilator associated pneumonia. Given the detrimental effects of PGD, AKI, and extended mechanical ventilation, we investigated whether the presence of potentially pathogenic bacteria (PPB) in perioperative donor lung bronchial cultures was associated with said occurrences in the immediate post-transplant period. We also investigated whether PPB affected 30-day postoperative mortality rates." If this still sounds too complicated to understand, don't worry. Your donations are helping increase the survival rate of lung transplant patients by funding lung transplant research.
Thank you for your donations! To help us keep growing, click here. Your donations to The Sid Foundation have helped so many. Here is a detailed breakdown of how we have used your donations for the last three years: Thank you for watching and for donating to us over the years!
To help us continue to grow, donate here.
The Sid Foundation Lung Transplant Patient Support Program is expanding! We want to share our new projects with you.
To donate, click here:
To volunteer, email us at info@thesidfoundation.org
To learn more about our lung transplant patient support program visit our Lung Transplant Patient Support Program Page. Thank you for your support! Mini Con 2018 was a blast! We met so many wonderful people in our community and:
Check out the pictures below to see what we did and visit our Facebook page to see videos of us going live at the event. Enjoy :) A big thank you to the Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center and Prime Vice Studios for helping us make this event a success!
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