This is Isabella Love's Mom, Stephanie Maleno.

I write this with a heavy heart and a hopeful one. I am urgently asking for prayers and donations to recover my daughter from a near-lifelong battle with Chronic Lyme disease with severe tick-borne fever. She has multiple co-infections that went misdiagnosed for 15 years. We are seeking funds to take her to Germany, a chronic Lyme disease hospital that specializes in relapsing tick-borne fever illnesses. We are scheduled to take her to be treated on June 4th for a 5-week hospital stay for her treatment. St. Georg Klinic is rated one of the top hospitals in the world for complex cases such as Isabellas.

We moved to Florida a couple of months ago, in February 2023, believing my daughter was beating the current diagnosis given to her, only to rush her to the emergency room in April with a relapse physically. She could not get out of bed for nearly 8 days without assistance. Many hospitals and specialists and over half of a million dollars in out-of-pocket medical expenses later, we have finally found what the mystery illness is. My sweet little lady has been in chronic pain for most of her life due to it. Her 80 vials of bloodwork this April came back positive for many forms of rare deadly bacteria with tick-borne relapsing fever and Lyme disease. She is a brown-eyed petite 5' 2-inch girl who loves, singing, friends, drawing and art classes. She is especially interested in art animation and still dreams of being an artist one day.

She has taken many antibiotics and medications/supplements every day, since she was five years old, at the recommendations of many specialists in the United States. She was diagnosed with all the wrong illnesses/disorders in what feels like an eternity. We finally got her to a Lyme literate specialty doctor this year and discovered she has many co-infections that are rare, and if not treated can be life-threatening. Her body is extremely tired from fighting for so long. She sleeps a lot and has no time for friends at this point and has lost interest in nearly all of the things she once loved and thrived in. Getting through her school day is a lot for her and once she is done, she comes home to eat and goes to bed due to chronic fatigue and joint pain. Her symptoms started very slowly when she was a toddler and debilitated from there.

It has been so difficult to see her struggle physically and socially. It is hard as a Mom, to see your teenager not feel well enough to even brush their hair or put on even basic makeup. She doesn't feel even well enough to do that at this point. High school is not filled with normal things, like date nights, parties and friends or learning how to drive a car. It's heart-wrenching to watch and see her physically struggle daily. Now that we know, all we want to do is heal her so she can try to pick up the pieces of all the heartache that has seemed never ending and try to have some normalcy after such a long 15-year battle.

The funds raised will be used to heal Isabella through a scientifically proven 30-year recovery track record at St. Georg Klinc in Germany. Because of the lengthy misdiagnosis of 15 years and the complexity of her Lyme disease with multiple co-infections the team in Germany is recommending a stay at the hospital for 5 weeks for a full recovery of all of the systems in her body that have been affected. Once back home in the United States, the team of doctors says it's about another 2 weeks of rest and recovering from the intense treatments given. All funds raised will be used for daily expenses during treatments, supplements and medications given by the doctors in the clinic, bloodwork, medical travel/flights, and hospital accommodations in the Lyme disease clinic in Germany. Anyone who has taken the time to read this, thank you for caring enough to read it, I know it's a lot, even for me to write. Hopefully, our pain will help someone who has been searching for the answers to their mystery illness. And lastly, anyone who has taken the time to donate, thank you from the bottom of this mother's heart. Thank you isn't a big enough word to use, but it's all I have. Just know you will be saving the most beautiful little girl's life, and ultimately in doing so, you are saving a family. God bless you and yours. Much Love, Stephanie, Isabella's Mom.

http://www.klinik-st-georg.de/en/