EmersonStrong-Help Em get her life back!
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Emerson DeLange is a 14 year old competitive soccer player and gymnast who cannot participate in either activity. She is a violinist who cannot make music. She is a teenager who cannot hang out with her friends. She is a student who cannot attend classes. She is a daughter who feels enormous guilt for always being sick. She is a sister who watches her siblings as life continues for them, while it passes her by.
Emerson DeLange is a 14 year old who has a permanent headache. She is in pain ALL day, EVERY day. It NEVER goes away. Not even with the strongest of medications. Because her family history includes migraines, she has continuously been told they are just headaches and she needs to learn to live with them; to PUSH through! She's been doing so for 42 months now, with her first onset back at Thanksgiving of 2010. The headache she has today has been with her for over 19 months. Not one second has she been without pain in the last year and a half.
She has been admitted to UVA and Chicago's Diamond Headache Clinic for a week at a time. She has traveled to Johns Hopkins and currently is under the care of Kevin Crutchfield with the Sandra and Malcolm Berman Brain and Spine Institute, both in Maryland. Prior to all this, she frequented the emergency room 21 times in one calendar year. She has tried a very long list of prevention and abortive medications. She has utilized both western and eastern practices, often stepping outside her comfort zone to do so. She even participated in a drastic dietary elimination process for many months in an attempt to heal her body from the inside out.
ALL IN VAIN! Her pain has continued to increase while her quality of life has decreased.
She is miserable, but SHE IS STRONG!!! She is also a candidate for occipital neuralgia (ON) surgery that insurance has denied and deems unnecessary. Emerson and her parents will travel to Bangor, Maine on June 20 where Dr. David Branch will cut into all four zones of the peripheral nerves in her head to decompress and/or excise any and all areas that may be the source of her pain. It's a tedious, but low risk, surgery. Recovery will be slow and we may not have the results for a full year as to how well she responds.
She is scared, but says the thought of living with constant pain the rest of her life is scarier. Help us help them defray medical expenses and give Emerson her life back.
To learn more about Emerson's amazing strength, please visit her blog at http://kristinadelange.com
Emerson DeLange is a 14 year old who has a permanent headache. She is in pain ALL day, EVERY day. It NEVER goes away. Not even with the strongest of medications. Because her family history includes migraines, she has continuously been told they are just headaches and she needs to learn to live with them; to PUSH through! She's been doing so for 42 months now, with her first onset back at Thanksgiving of 2010. The headache she has today has been with her for over 19 months. Not one second has she been without pain in the last year and a half.
She has been admitted to UVA and Chicago's Diamond Headache Clinic for a week at a time. She has traveled to Johns Hopkins and currently is under the care of Kevin Crutchfield with the Sandra and Malcolm Berman Brain and Spine Institute, both in Maryland. Prior to all this, she frequented the emergency room 21 times in one calendar year. She has tried a very long list of prevention and abortive medications. She has utilized both western and eastern practices, often stepping outside her comfort zone to do so. She even participated in a drastic dietary elimination process for many months in an attempt to heal her body from the inside out.
ALL IN VAIN! Her pain has continued to increase while her quality of life has decreased.
She is miserable, but SHE IS STRONG!!! She is also a candidate for occipital neuralgia (ON) surgery that insurance has denied and deems unnecessary. Emerson and her parents will travel to Bangor, Maine on June 20 where Dr. David Branch will cut into all four zones of the peripheral nerves in her head to decompress and/or excise any and all areas that may be the source of her pain. It's a tedious, but low risk, surgery. Recovery will be slow and we may not have the results for a full year as to how well she responds.
She is scared, but says the thought of living with constant pain the rest of her life is scarier. Help us help them defray medical expenses and give Emerson her life back.
To learn more about Emerson's amazing strength, please visit her blog at http://kristinadelange.com
Organizer
Andrea Smith
Organizer
Staunton, VA
