Isabella's Brain/Spine Surgery Fund

Hello Family, Friends, and Kind Strangers, In August 2016, at the start of Isabella's Freshman year of College, she began experiencing severe headaches and chronic neck pain. Within three months, her symptoms had become very dibilitating, physically and neurologically. She, unfortunately, had to take a medical leave of abscence from Colorado College due to her overwhelming symptoms.  In January 2017 Isabella had her first appointment with an extremely diligent, knowledgable, caring Physician. It was not even a month later when a cervical MRI confirmed that Isabella had a brain stem compression, as well as, brain tonsil herniation. Within months of finding the brain stem compression Isabella would be diagnosed with many more medical issues: 1. Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (a genetic connective tissue/collagen defect disorder) 2.  Basilar Invagination (brain stem compression) 3. Chiari Malformation 'Variant' (brain tonsil herniation over the sides of the brain stem vs. herniation over the top of the brain stem)  4. Mast Cell Activation Disorder  5. Cranial Cervical Instability 6. Cervico Meduallary Syndrome 7. Dysautonomia (malfunction of the autonomic nervous system) 8. Antiphospholipid Syndrome (autoimmune blood clotting disorder)   .......and the list goes on For over a  year now,  we have met with several specialists and exhausted every treatment option they knew of.  As treatments failed we realized  we needed an expert. This is when we discovered that there are currently only a handful of experienced Neurosurgeons who have the expertise to operate and care for patients with these combined complex medical issues . Making Isabella one of the "rarest of the rare" , as quoted from an article written by Dr. Richard Anderson. We submitted her imaging and medical information to a world renowned Neurosurgeon in New York for review. She was excited to be accepted as one of his patients. After some extra imaging and several video conference  appointments, the Neurosurgeon is ready to proceed into the operation phase of treatment. Her surgery is scheduled for early spring. His plan of action is: 1. Invasive Cranial Traction (day one) 2. Cranial Cervical Fusion and a Posterior Fossa Decompression that will also address the brain tonsil herniation (day two) 3. There is a possibility that we will have to return to New York within several months for a secondary spinal surgery. We began saving money for this medical trip after our first video conference appointment, about five months ago, in August 2017. We have managed to save half of the expected needed amount.  As of now, we have enough to cover the flight, car rental, and lodging accomodations (which are not cheap!) This leaves us with no money for unexpected travel incidentals, food, lost wages, unforeseen medical expenses, etc.  This is why we finally decided to create this gofundme campaign. If there is any way any of you could help us on this medical journey, we would be forever grateful. We really want to get Isabella on a road to recovery, so that she can go back to what she LOVES...Learning! Thank you for reading and sharing this. If you have any questions, please reach out to me privately. *If you would like more medical information of the diagnoses and procedures, follow the attached links. 1. http://www.chiarinsc.com/ 2. https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/what-is-eds/ 3. http://www.dysautonomiainternational.org/