Hi, my name is Troy Torstrick. Due to medical issues for both me and my wife, we have had a rough year. We lost our house at the beginning of the year due mostly to inconsistent income because of my wife's long-standing medical problems that have prevented her from being able to work consistently. We luckily found a place to rent quickly but I now have a medical problem that has been getting steadily worse over the past year.

That problem is a lesion in the spinal cord of my neck, the exact cause of which is still not definitive and it could be a tumor. The symptoms started about a year ago and have progressed exponentially since then until the symptoms got so bad that I was unable to continue working.

I have numbness now in over half of my body, muscle tightness and fatigue and abnormal deep tendon hyper reflexes throughout my body (Hoffman's reflex) and tremors in my hands and legs, which, combined with the numbness and other symptoms makes driving safely impossible and it is very difficult now just to walk and to use my hands among other difficulties. The doctor that wrote up the results of my last MRI was apparently amazed that I didn't already have some level of paralysis.

I am now in the hospital getting more tests and treatments, hoping that it is anything but a tumor requiring biopsy, which carries the risk of losing function of some or all of my limbs.

I've fortunately been approved for FMLA but have been out of work now long enough that all of my leave is exhausted and I have a negative income (I still have to pay for benefits).

My wife has taken great care of me but the last few months has required her to take a lot of time off work to ferry me to various and sundry outpatient testing and to just provide basic care as my symptoms have progressed, which has significantly diminished our family income and made the problem worse. Our income is currently a quarter or less of what it was when we were just breaking even.

We're now deep in a financial hole having not yet recovered from the hit of losing our house earlier this year. We have exhausted savings and early withdrawals from retirement plans, we're currently overdrawn and are now in jeopardy of not being able to pay rent, utilities, gas and food for us and our 10 year old daughter and may be on the verge of eviction if we can't pay the rent in the next few weeks.

I will be in the hospital for at least 5 more days and no idea when I may be able to return to work or whether I may be left with permanent disability preventing me from being able to work at all, which I understand is likely irrespective of what the diagnosis turns out to be among the various options.

So far, testing has failed to point to a specific condition and lots of doctors are still scratching their heads over it. I've has 5 MRIs in the past month, x-rays, CT scans, various neurological exams and tests, two lumbar punctures in about two weeks and tons of blood work, I'm surprised I still have enough blood left to draw for more labs since they seem to need 2 or 3 new labs every day. I feel like a human pincussion.

We are now treating the problem as a demyelinating disease since that is least intrusive and least potentially harmful to treat if it isn't a demyelinating disease, which could also rule out a demyelinating disease. This means steroids that my body doesn't tolerate well at all and plasmapheresis, which is why I have a dialysis catheter (Shiley catheter) sticking out of my jugular vein in my picture.

After about 5 more days of daily plasmapheresis treatment, depending on the response, will mean another MRI in about 6 weeks to look for changes to the lesion and hopefully progress. Otherwise I am probably looking at biopsy.

I set the initial target amount at $5,000 and the immediate concern is rent and basic living expenses for the next few months but that is likely far too conservative considering the medical debt that this is going to undoubtedly leave us with in the longer term with no guarantee that I will ever regain the function I will need to get back to work.

I am begging, grovelling for financial help for my family that I am now unable to provide and any help you can give in any amount will help keep a roof over my wife and daughter's heads, food on the table and the light on in the immediate future. Large contributions would be very helpful but so will small ones. If you can't afford a contribution at all but know someone that can, please forward, which would be just as helpful. My family and I will be eternally grateful for any and all help that we can get.

Please let me know any questions that you have and thank you just for reading this far.