Jaye's Journey

I sat down with a friend of ours to help me write my story of my wife's journey over the last 3 years. It's a long read, her struggle has been long.
It started back in 2013. Jaye had horrible face pain and never ending headaches on the left side. She thought it was a new twist to the migraines she had suffered with her whole life and possibly a bad tooth. When the pain didn't stop she went to her doctor who diagnosed Jaye with Trigeminal Neuralgia and referred her to a Neurologist. An MRI was done to rule out tumors.

The first approach to managing this painful condition would be medication and the first medication showed slight benefit. It was then decided to add a secondary pain medication.
About 10 days in, Jaye noticed symptoms of a forewarned dangerous reaction. She returned to the neurologist with her concerns about this new medication and the doctor actually ignored the symptoms telling her to continue taking the medication. He told her that historically, only Asian ethnicities developed serious side effects so she shouldn't worry. Within days, Jaye was in the e.r. where they transferred her via ambulance to HCMC's ICU Burn unit. She was in critical condition with Stevens Johnson Syndrome and we had no idea if she was going to survive.
With very knowledgeable and caring medical staff, prayers, love and support of family and friends and her own fierce determination Jaye beat this syndrome and was released after 13 grueling days. Needless to say, the warnings for this medication in regards to ethnicity were rewritten.

Jaye would now face an additional 6 months of varying failed medications.
In October of 2014, she opted to have Gamma Knife Radiation, a procedure offered to combat Trigeminal Neuralgia when medication alone is not working. It is not a quick fix though. It could take 8 to 10 months to know if the procedure was going to be helpful.
In the meantime Jaye's pain seriously escalated. Desperate for relief, Jaye returned to her Cyberknife doctor. She learned that Micro vascular decompression, an invasive brain surgery, was her remaining option. Facing her greatest fear Jaye had this surgery in February of 2015.
The success of this surgery was recognized immediately! For the first time in 18 months she was free of the Trigeminal Neuralgia pain and after 8 weeks of recovering from the brain surgery Jaye felt ready and excited to get back to work.
Sadly, the excitement was very short lived. After only 6 days my wife was under the attack of such severe pain, unlike anything she had ever felt before. She describes to me a multilayered pain, imagine being hit in the head with a baseball bat. Jaw broken, nose broken, teeth knocked out and at the same time raw electrical current is shooting through every single nerve ending. There is little escape from this horrific pain. She says it plays out every minute of every hour of every day.
This assault is called Anesthesia Dolorosa, a rare and dreaded complication of that radiation procedure she had. There was no known cure for this.

Since the onset of this condition 19 months ago the pain clinic has tried about 10 different medications. None have been successful.
Her team of doctors have pretty much just thrown their hands in the air, even the Mayo Clinic has told her they don't think there is anything they could offer. Jaye sought out other approaches such as acupuncture, essential oils, vitamins, medical laser treatments, pulsed electromagnetic field treatments and on and on to no avail.

I have such admiration for her strength and perseverance! I think most people would have given up when their doctors gave up!
But she pushed on and continued researching and she discovered a neurosurgeon in Kentucky that has pioneered a procedure specifically for her rare condition. His procedure has shown a significant reduction in pain, 50 to 80%!

A few weeks ago Jaye's daughter Tracy took her to Kentucky and she met with this surgeon. After reviewing her numerous MRI's and medical records he feel's that she is an ideal candidate for his procedure!
With that being said Jaye is scheduled for surgery on December 1st.

I will be taking a leave from work to go to Kentucky with my wife. We will start the drive down after Thanksgiving (Jaye can't fly) and we are anticipating the trip to take about 4 weeks before she is cleared to make the ride back home.

No husband ever wants to admit that he can't handle this by himself but because my wife is so deserving of this opportunity I am humbling myself and asking for the help of our friends and family.

We will have no income coming in during this time and savings have been depleted. We will not only have our home expenses but will also have travel expenses such as hotel, food, fuel etc. There are also some medical expenses not covered by our insurance and that is why I have set up this page.

You may donate by credit card or Pay Pal through this secure site or you can send cash or checks to;

Jaye Depew
PO Box 490485
Blaine, MN 55449

I will keep you updated on this next leg of Jaye's Journey!

Please share this so we can get our plea out there.

We thank you in advance for your positive thoughts, prayers and assistance!