California woman with extreme anorexia turns to crowdfunding for help
A California woman suffering from an extreme case of anorexia has turned to crowdfunding to pay the medical bills required to save her life.
Rachael Farrokh, 37, currently weighs about 40 pounds. Her husband Rod Edmondson, who quit his job to become her full-time caretaker, says she will die "if we don't take action immediately."
"I'm 5'7", 40-something pounds," an extremely emaciated Farrokh said in an emotional plea on a YouTube video posted in April. "I need your help ... Otherwise I don't have a shot."
In the video, Edmondson is seen caring for her, including a heartbreaking scene where he precariously carries her frail body down the stairs of their home.
The video was posted with a crowdfunding page on GoFundMe to raise enough money to send her to a special centre that specializes in treating eating disorders. Edmondson says the ACUTE Center for Eating Disorders in Denver is the only institution that agreed to help them, if they can pay.
In about a month, however, a glimmer of hope arrived. Since April 29, more than 6,000 people have donated over $167,000 US, passing their asking amount of $100,000.
"Thank you all for the ongoing support.This is a long road and you all are helping turn her around," Edmondson wrote on his Facebook page Rachael's Road to Recovery. "She reads all of your posts for therapy when she feels down and it shuts the eating disorder down in the process as a distraction. She is going to beat this once and for all. I don't feel alone anymore and I love you all."
Other hospitals told Farrokh and Edmondson that her weight was so low that she would be "a liability for them." She's already undergone multiple blood transfusions and suffered heart, liver and kidney failures.
Speaking to ABC News, Farrokh says she hopes the growing public nature of her ordeal will help raise awareness about eating disorders and dispel popular myths about it.
"To be honest, I live moment by moment, day by day, because my odds aren't very good," she told ABC News. "The recovery process for an anorexic, it's ridiculous. If you're going to make it, you're going to have to get out there. You have to go out and meet life. Go to treatment because it's not going to come to you."
"This disease comes with an incredible amount of pain, emotionally, physically and mentally but it is often oversimplified," Edmondson wrote on the GoFundMe page. "People think it's just about being skinny and that they just need to eat something and it will be all better."
