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Ella's Surgery and Recovery

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* Surgery scheduled for Aug 9*

We are making this Gofundme because Ella needs some major help getting healthy enough to live a normal life.  This Gofundme will serve as a way to fund Ella's journey to health and to inform people of Ella's health. 

As many people know Ella was diagnosed with Papillary Carcinoma of the thyroid in 2016. The cancer ended up being worse then initially thought and ended up with a major surgery that: removed her thyroid, 27 lymph-nodes and neck tissue, scraped her vocal cords and laryngeal nerves causing permanent nerve damage and voice changes. Because of the severity of the surgery and a hematoma, she had 3x the amount of anesthesia she was supposed to greatly effecting her memory and delaying recovering. 

What a lot of people don't know, or know little about, is that Ella also greatly suffers from several other health issues that make it very hard to have much of a quality of life. These health issues have also prolonged the recovery from the cancer. 

Ella's health issues include:
   1. Endometriosis (possible P.C.O.S also) 
   2. Fibromyalgia 
   3. Depression, anxiety, and P.T.S.D
   4. High insulin / insulin resistant 
   5. Past cancer and having a high risk of cancer in the future 
   6. G.E.R.D, constant nausea, and other stomach issues 
   7. Muscle spasms (debilitating)
   8. Mystery heart pain
   9.  Psoriasis on her hands (unable to treat and painful, most likely arthritic)    
   10. Allergies
   11. Asthma
   12. Deformed feet (flat foot, z foot, bad surgery, extra navicular bone, and plantar fasciitis.
   
I must say that Ella is really going out on a limb opening up about all these issues. She has been told by multiple doctors that "it's all in her head". This simply is not the case and in order to help her get healthy she needs people to believe her and help her in any way possible. Ella has tried so many things and continues to do her absolute best, however she needs help to be able to reach her health goals. Social security disability pretty much says she is too young to get it. 

  The most urgent of these all is Endometriosis (aka endo)! Ella has had endo symptoms (irregular periods, chronic pelvic pain, excessively heavy periods, urinary and bowel issues, just to name a few) since puberty when she was put on  hormonal birth control pills to mask the symptoms and underlying issues. A few months ago she was taken off of hormonal birth control (trying to lessen the health risks associated with hormone birth control) and since then her symptoms have become very severe. The problems continue and are growing. She is in need of a surgery ( laparoscopy with excision ) to treat the endo! Although there is no known cure for endo this surgery is the absolute best at effectively treating it. After the surgery there will be the need for continued care and potentially more surgeries in the future.  Ella has been recently put on 3 new medications (making the grand total go up to 8 pills a day) to help with the insulin resistance, endo symptoms, and thyroid levels. Even with these medications she is unable to live normally or function fully. She has been unable to stay active or keep her daily routine.

The other major and urgent issue is the Fibromyalgia (aka fibro). Fibro is a very misunderstood disorder! Most doctors that even acknowledge that it exists do not know what to to to help and or treat the condition. There are just know new cutting edge doctors and research coming out about fibro. We are finding that it does not have a single cause or affect only one part of the body. Instead it is a multi system (endocrine, immune and digestive, nervous, musculature, and skeleton alignment) disorder where some sort of untreated trauma effects one or more systems causing other systems to be effected later on.  Although technically there is still no known cure, through boosting the health of all the different systems effected many people have been able to find permanent relief and a better quality of life.   

The symptoms of fibro include: widespread chronic pain and sensitivity, digestive issues, fatigue, poor sleep, brain fog, muscle spasms, nausea, depression, and more.  Ella's symptoms are so bad to the point of making it impossible to work or attend school. Hard if not impossible to exercise and be fit (no matter how bad you want to). Overall very hard to lead a normal life especially for a 22 year old! 

It is not surprising that Ella has all the issues she has. Most of them are often comorbid (the simultaneous presence of two chronic diseases or conditions in a patient). Most of these issues come from the same basic systems that are way off balance (to sensitive or to suppressed to do their job effectively).

Our current ideas of how this all started comes from the foot issues.
We believe ( and have evidence to support) that as Ella was growing up and walking on her deformed feet her nervous system, bone alignment, and musculature were greatly affected. Those being effected caused many of the other systems to be greatly affected, to the point of creating multiple issues. Those issues have been worsened by mistreatment and over medication as a result of some inexperienced and uneducated doctors (over 65 different harsh drugs including Lithium, Seroquel, Xyrem, ect.)  All this being said Ella has been suffering most of her life with the pain of fibro and the worsening of her overall health. 

As Ella has grown her pain has slowly spread from her feet to now all the way up to head, neck and shoulders. All the while, she has full body pain. Her overall health has gotten worse and will continue to worsen till some drastic changes are made that take money and time.  

The money donated will be used for:
   1. The surgery for endo
                 - travel to and around city
                 - hotels and food
                 - after care and bills
   2. Medicine 
                 - cost of medicine  (reoccurring)
   3. Supplements to help fix Ella's digestive tract
                 - digestive enzymes 
                 - probiotics 
                 - vitamins 
                 - nutrition/diet 
   4. Specialized doctors (not covered by insurance) 
   5. To buffer the cost of not being able to work (bills, food)
   6. Help us stay afloat the next couple months while I am laid off and she is being treated for endo. 
   7. other unforeseen costs of getting healthy 

Thank you so much to anyone who takes the time to read this and share it!!!! I hope that many of you can spare even a few dollars to help Ella get on a better track. Its been such a hard life for her and it's been very hard for me to see her and help her through all she goes though. We will use this Gofundme page to update people about the journey and to continue to inform people about her specific issues. We will post peer- reviewed studies and info as well as possibly some videos to show the kind of pain she deals with. 

Again thank you to everyone!
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Donations 

  • Sarah Domeier
    • $50 
    • 5 yrs
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Organizer and beneficiary

Kellan Ehrich
Organizer
Marquette, MI
Ella Barnes
Beneficiary

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