Friends, family 'Have a Heart' for ailing New Rochelle man

LoHud.com | Richard Leibson
Family and friends have a 'heart' for Frankie: Friends and family came together for a fundraising event at Hudson Park in New Rochelle for Frankie Rotellini, a New Rochelle city worker in need of a heart transplant. (Video by Seth Harrison/The Journal News)

NEW ROCHELLE â€" Life was good for Frank Rotellini. A 38-year-old mechanic who works for the city of New Rochelle, Rotellini married Michele, a teacher, in September and a few months later the couple was happily making plans to start a family.

Then “Frankie,” as his friends and family call him, started getting tired a lot. He ignored that for a while, but he began having trouble sleeping, he gained weight and his hands and feet began to swell.

Two months ago, a medical examination revealed the worst: Rotellini was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a type of heart disease.

Since then, he’s been in the intensive care unit at Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, N.J., breathing through a ventilator and spending most of the time sedated as he awaits a life-saving heart transplant.

Michele Rotellini makes the hour-and-a-half drive to visit him every day and prays for him every night.
______________________________________________________ 
"You have the power to SAVE lives." 
To register as a donor in California: 
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org 
Outside California: 
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.net


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