{"id":5,"date":"2019-03-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cota1.wpengine.com\/cotaformesa\/our-story\/"},"modified":"2019-03-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T00:00:00","slug":"our-story","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformesa\/our-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The Children&#8217;s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) helps children and young adults who need a life-saving transplant by providing fundraising assistance and family support. COTA is the nation&rsquo;s only fundraising organization solely dedicated to raising life-saving dollars in honor of transplant-needy children and young adults. 100% of each contribution made to COTA in honor of our patients helps meet transplant-related expenses. COTA&rsquo;s services are free to our families, and gifts to COTA are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;One such child that (COTA) is helping is Mesa Orth.&nbsp; Mesa was adopted by her parents, Kelly and Kenny in July 2004 from Guangdong China; She turned 1 just 1 week after arriving home. Mesa is a sweet girl, full of smiles that blossomed into an intelligent, thoughtful teenager as well as a talented artist. &nbsp;On Dec 12, 2018 Mesa and her family&rsquo;s world was turned upside down when she was diagnosed with <strong>Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). &nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;She had been feeling weak, dizzy, had aching joints, a decreased appetite and low hemoglobin. &nbsp;It was thought she was having gastrointestinal issues and she was scheduled for an exploratory procedure. In preparation for this, she needed lab work done; the next day her family received the call that they needed to go to the emergency room right away because there were &ldquo;abnormal cells&rdquo;. &nbsp;Within hours they were led to the cancer floor where Mesa would spend upcoming months of her life battling this disease. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Presently, Mesa has been in the hospital for stints of 37 days, 29 days, and now her 3rd hospitalization going on 3 weeks now and counting. Because Mesa did not achieve remission on her first round of chemo, she must have a bone marrow transplant for the best prognosis. Luckily, 3 potential donors have been identified; however, it must be determined if they are still willing and able to participate and then they must undergo additional testing to determine if they are indeed a good match. Presently there is 1 donor that has scheduled their testing; it is an excruciating experience to wait to find out if a donor can be found to heal your child.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Mesa and her family are hoping that one of these donors will be a match so Mesa can go into transplant shortly after this hospitalization. &nbsp;The transplantation process will require her to be hospitalized for another 60-75 days; if we do not have donors available immediately, she will go through one more round of chemo while awaiting transplant. &nbsp;Once transplantation is complete, Mesa will be required to stay with a Parent at a Ronald McDonald house location for about 3 months because her family lives outside the 30-mile radius maximum required by the transplant hospital because her health will be in a very delicate condition. If all goes well Mesa will be in the hospital more than 150 days.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;So, here is where <strong>you <\/strong>can help.&nbsp; Please donate anything you can to help with the crushing financial burdens that families like Mesa&rsquo;s endure.&nbsp; Every dollar will help.&nbsp; Please make a donation today, no matter how small.&nbsp; Please use this webpage to donate <strong>(COTA) in honor of Mesa.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thank you in Advance, God Bless<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The Children&#8217;s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) helps children and young adults who need a life-saving transplant by providing fundraising assistance and family support. COTA is the nation&rsquo;s only fundraising organization solely dedicated to raising life-saving dollars in honor of transplant-needy children and young adults. 100% of each contribution made to COTA in honor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformesa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformesa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformesa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformesa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformesa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformesa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformesa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}