Help Me Beat Chronic Lyme Disease

Living with chronic illness is a silent and isolating struggle. Without visible symptoms, it’s hard for others to understand the severity of your condition. Doctors pass you from one specialist to another, offering no concrete solutions and regularly dismissing the very real symptoms and struggles attached. Often the stress of advocating for your health within a profit-driven healthcare system can be as damaging as the illness itself. I’ve tried everything at my disposal, but I really need help.

I strongly suspect I have Chronic Lyme Disease. Reflecting on my late mother’s health issues and my lifelong health issues, I’ve likely had it for most if not all of my life. For a long while, I obscured the symptoms with alcohol and other forms of self-medication, to my detriment. When I gave up drinking in 2022 I realized just how much pain I was in daily. After contracting COVID-19 and compromising my immune system, the symptoms flared up and grew exponentially from there.

Since then, my life has solely revolved around managing my illness and seeking a path to wellness/recovery. I’ve visited nearly every specialist imaginable for my illness, seeking relief or even a diagnosis to grant me access to proper treatment.

Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to obtain a diagnosis with Chromic Lyme much like autoimmune disorders. In our profit-driven healthcare system, there is little funding for research on Chronic Lyme and little money to be made. Because of this, people in my condition are often expected/forced to figure it out ourselves.

Many of you have probably seen me during this period and most likely had no idea how sick I truly was. In reality, each day is filled with chronic pain, often so debilitating I can’t leave the bed for days, brain fog that makes even the most mundane cognitive tasks difficult, and other symptoms that wreak havoc on my daily life.

In my current state, the only time I leave home is for essential errands, healthcare, and to work markets and festivals for my small business. In the past two years I’ve been able to mask my symptoms and handle my day-to-day responsibilities, but to do so I have to be heavily medicated.

A consistent opiate schedule and a gamut of ineffective treatments are the only tools our healthcare system has provided me, masking the symptoms without addressing the root cause. It's a toxic bandaid recommended to stop the hemorrhaging and at this point, I am unable to work or manage my business even with pain management.

I have already spent tens of thousands on my path to recovery. I have been working on this for a very long time in some form or another, but my ability to work on it relies on my ability to make money and I have for the most part lost that. My business has adapted to accommodate my condition, but it is getting more and more difficult to maintain. If I were able to step away to focus on my health with your help and receive the treatment I need, I believe I can beat this.

How You Can Help:

The money I'm asking for will go towards treatments that I have found through suggestions from people who have had Lyme Disease or Lyme literate doctors. Everyone’s cases are different so some procedures work for some and not for others. I plan to go to Thailand to get a full body evaluation. There I can have every test available to give me a full picture of my health all under one building.

This is something that could take years to do here in the United States with all the different specialists you will have to see and referrals required. Specialists are taking an average of three months for me to see. The money will also help me pay for supplements and treatments to help me kill and detox from the Lyme bacteria as well as help me pay my bills while I'm going through this. I will be working on this every day, going to treatments, and physical therapy to repair my muscle tissue etc.

My partner Alaina said to me not long ago that I have been fighting something be it mental or physical the entire time we have been together for the better part of a decade. She has never met the healthy version of me. After I sat with that, I realized I've never met that person either. I'd really like to meet that person and introduce him to all of you as well.

If you know me personally, you know asking for help is something that I really struggle with. Because of my illness, this is an issue that I am being forced to confront and I wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't dire. When I mentioned my hesitation to creating a gofundme to my friend CC he replied "asking for help is the refusal to give up". That really helped me decide to make this campaign. Any donation, big or small helps me greatly on my path to wellness. Even if you are only able to spread the world, your help means the world to me.