Eileen Rubin, President and Paula Blonski, Vice President share the personal stories of how they came to be involved in the organization. Read their stories below.

My name is Eileen Rubin and as President of the ARDS Foundation, I would like to welcome you to our organization's website.

For your information, I would like to explain my connection to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.  In May of 1995, when I was thirty-three years old, I learned about ARDS in much the same way as most of you.  Here is my story.

On June 2, 1995, I went to the emergency room at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois, because I could not breathe and my white count was three times higher than normal.  I was told that I had pneumonia.  I was placed on oxygen and admitted directly into the Intensive Care Unit.  That night, my kidneys failed.  A day and a half later, I went into respiratory arrest and was intubated.  I spent the next four weeks in a drug-induced coma.  I was given a tracheotomy.  The prognosis was extremely grave.  My family was told several times that I would not survive and they should consider removing me from life support, that it would be a quality of life issue.  However, after four weeks, I either responded to steroid treatment or just began to turn the corner enough to be taken out of the coma.

I spent the next five weeks on the respiratory floor, riding the ARDS roller coaster. Throughout the course of my nine week hospital stay, both my lungs collapsed twice requiting five chest tubes; I suffered a hospital psychosis (psychotic episode); I needed eight blood transfusions; I developed a secondary pneumonia in my trach.  I had an impossible time getting off the vent, but one day, made up my mind that in order to walk out of the hospital, to have children, I would have to get off the vent.

My recovery was challenging.  Like most survivors, I was completely deconditioned.  I had physical therapy for three months and then continued at the local fitness center.  I did not work for eight months after my hospital release, and then, only part time.  On the other hand, I was able to get pregnant with my first daughter only six months after I got out of the hospital.  Almost two years later, my second daughter completed our family.

One of my major motivations for creating this organization is the fact that when I was sick, there was no one to help my family, to answer their questions, calm their fears, give them hope.  There was no literature available to them aside from the medical articles, which they did not fully comprehend.  Once I got out of my coma, there was no one available for me.  And for years, I thought that ARDS was a relatively rare condition.  I did not know that there were so many people out there who could relate to my experience.

In creating this foundation, we are hoping to not only educate, but also provide support to those in need.  And, in time, to raise the much needed funds to assist in the research already being done.  I know that if a family member or friend were diagnosed with ARDS and I had done nothing to change things for the better, I would feel more than remiss.