A Marine Park family is hoping the community can help raise the money it needs to save the life of a young woman fighting a deadly disease.
Twenty-three-year-old Chaya Kohn has been battling cystic fibrosis since birth, and now needs a double lung transplant, so her parents, siblings, and close friends have started a campaign to raise money for Kohn’s treatment, and to raise awareness for others dealing with similar conditions.
“We’re looking to the community for help,” said Kohn’s mother Sarah Luxenberg.
Double lung transplants alone can cost approximately $800,000 and transplant centers encourage patients and their families to fund-raise because of many costs that insurance does not cover. The family is already spending thousands of dollars a month in expenses.
“The costs are hard to quantify when you consider time lost from work, travel expenses, and everything else on top of the medical expenses,” Luxenberg said.
Lung transplants are performed at regional centers around the country, but waiting lists in the New York region are lengthy, so Kohn relocated to Pittsburgh, where more lung transplants occur, more than a month ago. The family got Kohn an apartment and hired a home aide worker to help her because lengthy hospital stays can endanger her weakened immune system. Her father, Jacob, gave up his job in Florida and moved to Pittsburgh to be with his daughter, while her mother and stepfather, Allen, visit every two weeks. Kohn, a Brooklyn College graduate with a degree in psychology, now needs a wheelchair to get around and requires an oxygen mask at all times.
Four of Kohn’s closest friends hit the internet to support her friend and her beleaguered family.
“Social media offered the best opportunity to raise awareness and funds,” said Daniella Azrak, Kohn’s friend since college. “People have been extremely kind and generous.”
Friends Marissa Greenberg, Batya Hess, Rachel Rotblat, and Azrak started a Facebook page called Lungs For Life, and an accompanying GoFundMe campaign. The friends threw a fund-raiser, collecting more than $25,000. Family friends Alan and Rena Auerbach have donated an all-expense paid trip to the Dominican Republic that the Luxenberg’s are raffling off in order to raise more funds.
The Luxenberg’s efforts to draw attention to their daughter’s plight through social media clued them in to the many other people around the country dealing with similar struggles. Learning about other’s stories led the family to start Every Breath Counts, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping pre- and post-lung transplant cystic fibrosis patients.
“Once I reached out online, I realized just how many people deal with these issues,” said Allen Luxenberg. “We want to raise awareness about organ donations so we can help other people, too.”
For updates on Chaya Kohn and her condition, visit https://www.faceb
To donate money, visit www.gofun
To learn about cystic fibrosis patients in need of lung transplants or buy raffle tickets, visit every
