EAGLE COUNTY, Colorado – As Karol Rubi grapples with a serious autoimmune disorder, the Gypsum resident said she’s grateful for an outpouring of support from the community.

Her family recently set up a Web site where people can find out more about Rubi’s condition and make donations. So far, people have donated a little less than $2,200 for Rubi’s medical care.

“It gives me more hope,” the 27-year-old single mom said. “It gives my son more hope.”

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Although donations have been trickling in, Rubi and her family are worried about where they’ll find the thousands of dollars more she needs for her medical care. Doctors say Rubi’s cracked and missing teeth pose a threat to her health and require an operation that could cost up to $20,000. Rubi said she still needs thousands of dollars to get on a liver transplant list.

Since she spoke to the Vail Daily last month, Rubi said she spent four days in a Denver hospital where doctors treated her for an enlarged spleen.

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“It had become inflamed,” Rubi’s stepmom, Angie Meza, said. “It had quadrupled in size.”

For the past 12 years, Rubi has been coping with antiphospholipid syndrome, a disorder doctors discovered during her pregnancy. It has led to all kinds of complications – everything from blood clots in her liver to circulation problems, anemia, tooth loss and bronchitis. Rubi said she also has been forced to surrender custody of her 12-year-old son to his father because she has been too sick to take care of him.

Although Rubi said she feels hopeful, doctors acknowledge that her condition is serious.

“She’s critically ill,” Rubi’s doctor, Kent Petrie, said earlier. “She could get very sick, very fast, at any time.”

Faced with mounting costs for her medications and treatments, Rubi said she hopes her new Web site will inspire more people to donate. She said the contributions people have made gave her courage.

“God can’t give you more than you can handle,” she said.