Rare Disease - Need Help With Bills
Donation protected
Hello!
My name is Christina (or Krysia - depends on what's easier!) and I am a 24-year old female with a rare auto-immune disease called Wegener's Vasculitis. I was diagnosed when I was 15 and I have never been able to discontinue my medication.
Vasculitis is, in simplest terms, inflammation of blood vessels. While there is no known cause, the white blood cells attack blood vessels, which in turn causes damage to organs. In my case, the lungs and kidneys are affected. I also experience constant joint inflammation when I am having a disease flare (which means sometimes I can't walk or move around as freely). Having this condition means that I have complex bloodwork done every other week, routine appointments with various specialists, expensive tests, and now since I've had consistent flares of the disease - special IV treatments of a type of B-cell-killing drug called Rituxan. As of right now, this treament will be ongoing for the next two years, every six months for four weeks each. This is subject to change depending on how the disease reacts to the treatments. My next treatment is in September 2015.
Having graduated my undergraduate program not too long ago and now in graduate school while paying off some of those student loans, I do not have the ability to pay for this entirely on my own. I am currently in a master's program in public health studying Epidemiology and would like to continue being healthy so that I can finally just focus on school and not on disease maintenance.
Just so you know a little more about me before donating to my cause, here are some personal facts:
- One of my life goals is to conduct research regarding autoimmune diseases and their causes or risk factors since this group of diseases has been on the rise in recent years. My Master's thesis will likely be related to this topic as I work part-time for a research group that studies this.
- I am bilingual, speaking English and Polish fluently. This is because both of my parents emigrated here from Poland.
- I do not own a car. I try to ride my bike everywhere and bus whenever or wherever possible.
- Because of the biking, I would love to participate in a bike tour someday - where you ride your bike with a tour group in a country rather than traveling via car/train/bike
Really, any donation would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
My name is Christina (or Krysia - depends on what's easier!) and I am a 24-year old female with a rare auto-immune disease called Wegener's Vasculitis. I was diagnosed when I was 15 and I have never been able to discontinue my medication.
Vasculitis is, in simplest terms, inflammation of blood vessels. While there is no known cause, the white blood cells attack blood vessels, which in turn causes damage to organs. In my case, the lungs and kidneys are affected. I also experience constant joint inflammation when I am having a disease flare (which means sometimes I can't walk or move around as freely). Having this condition means that I have complex bloodwork done every other week, routine appointments with various specialists, expensive tests, and now since I've had consistent flares of the disease - special IV treatments of a type of B-cell-killing drug called Rituxan. As of right now, this treament will be ongoing for the next two years, every six months for four weeks each. This is subject to change depending on how the disease reacts to the treatments. My next treatment is in September 2015.
Having graduated my undergraduate program not too long ago and now in graduate school while paying off some of those student loans, I do not have the ability to pay for this entirely on my own. I am currently in a master's program in public health studying Epidemiology and would like to continue being healthy so that I can finally just focus on school and not on disease maintenance.
Just so you know a little more about me before donating to my cause, here are some personal facts:
- One of my life goals is to conduct research regarding autoimmune diseases and their causes or risk factors since this group of diseases has been on the rise in recent years. My Master's thesis will likely be related to this topic as I work part-time for a research group that studies this.
- I am bilingual, speaking English and Polish fluently. This is because both of my parents emigrated here from Poland.
- I do not own a car. I try to ride my bike everywhere and bus whenever or wherever possible.
- Because of the biking, I would love to participate in a bike tour someday - where you ride your bike with a tour group in a country rather than traveling via car/train/bike
Really, any donation would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Organizer
Krysia Mrukowicz
Organizer
Ann Arbor, MI
