My family needs to raise money for my cousin Mikaella “Mika” Nicolas who’s now 21 years old and is suffering from heart complications since the day she was born. It is really a miracle that she’s still alive and fighting today. But it is really a challenge to survive because of the different complications she have.

Mika is born with a hole in her heart and eversince, she’s coming in and out of the hospital. At 3 years old, she had her heart operation/PDA ligation at Philippine Heart Center. Thank God it is a success but before she had her operation, there are so many times she’ll loose her consciousness and her parents (my auntie & uncle) will rush her to the hospital.

At 8 years old, her appendix got removed. Months later, she had her urinary divertion at the National Kidney Transplant Institute (NKTI) because of kidney failure. Urinary divertion is where your bladder will have 2 holes and in that other hole is where your pee will come out instead of your private part.

After 10 years, last July 2017, her urinary bladder got diverted back to her private part and the holes in her bladder was closed. Since then, she’s using catheter to flush all her urine. After a month, her body got swollen and her creatinine got high. As per medicinenet.com “Elevated creatinine level signifies impaired kidney function or kidney disease. As the kidneys become impaired for any reason, the creatinine level in the blood will rise due to poor clearance of creatinine by the kidneys. Abnormally high levels of creatinine thus warn of possible malfunction or failure of the kidneys.”

After the Doctor saw that her creatinine was high, the Doctor decided that my cousin needed to start “hemodialysis” which is a process of purifying the blood of a person whose kidneys are not functioning normally, before the creatinine goes higher and might spread the poison in her whole body. She started hemodialysis last May this year 2018, up until now and she undergoes dialysis 3x a week. She can’t eat and drink too much because her body might swell more. She can only drink a liter a day. And since then, she’s in and out of the hospital.

October 20 2018 she got confined in Providence Hospital, Quezon, City. Tuesday, October 23 the Doctor had her scheduled to remove her left kidney for kidney transplant but last Sunday, October 21 she had an emergency operation when the Doctor saw that there’s fluid in her heart and they need to remove that fluid immediately. Hours later, they put a hose in her heart and collected a 550ml of fluid. The plan to remove the left kidney was cancelled because her heart is not in good condition. They need to remove all the water first and make sure the heart is ready for kidney removal then kidney transplant.

I hope you may help us raise money for my cousin’s kidney transplant. She and her family is fighting since the day she’s born and have come this far. I am a fan of her bravery and faith to live longer that any operation the doctor/s will say she need, she’s always game for it. She is indeed a strong woman.