UPDATE: Our fundraising goal has been reached! Thank you to all of you who contributed. We are extremely humbled by the outpouring of compassion. Thank you.

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Our daughter, Chloe, has a rare disease called Systemic Mastocytosis. This disease (which she has had since birth) causes her body to overproduce mast cells. As an important part of the immune system, mast cells produce a bunch of things (like histamine, for example) that tell the body to behave in certain ways when encountering a trigger. Symptoms she experiences are often similar to that of allergic reactions (swelling, itching, breathing difficulties, etc.).

Since she has far too many mast cells, her symptoms are multiplied far more than the average person. A typical viral infection (such as a head cold) can leave her congested for weeks; recovery time is often lengthy and sometimes finds us heading for the local ER. There is no cure for her disease, but she has received tremendous relief with Lymphatic Enhancement Therapy. This helps keeps her lymphatic system moving and eliminates a lot of the congested lymphatic "traffic" that happens when her mast cells create an over-abundance of problems.

Unfortunately, she requires far more lymphatic therapy sessions than we can afford. And if she ends up needing chemo treatments (we are still awaiting test results in regard to this), the lymphatic therapy will need to be even more frequent.

We want to invest in purchasing a lymphatic therapy machine to use at home. These machines are expensive, so we are grateful for any help we can get in saving toward this medical expense.