Kindly help George to fight his Myopathy illness.

George Michael L : This is the story of a 16 years old teen with a soul of a Rocky Balboa, deeply passionate for fitness, boxing and weightlifting, an amazing friend, compassionate bright young man, right at the beginning of his blossoming young adult life full of dreams and goals, suddenly starts an unpredictable confusing debilitating journey that has lasted for five painful excruciating years of crippling deterioration illness, invasive diagnostic procedures and multiple misleading inconclusive suspected diagnosis, several /multiple ED visits and hospitalizations progressing from primary care to secondary care specialist to tertiary healthcare level facilities. He is 21 in the present year and still fighting a complex Myopathy.

My name is Aramis and I am creating this fundraising to support my best friend’s son who has been day after day battling a complex Myopathy.

George was only 16, a very athletic good student with special interest on fitness and health sciences classes. An active young boy when he suffered from a complex ankle fracture accident that has required four (4) consecutive surgeries leaving him with permanent irreversible damage to his nerves and joints. Suddenly starts an unpredictable confusing debilitating journey that has lasted for five painful excruciating years of crippling deterioration illness, invasive diagnostic procedures and multiple misleading inconclusive suspected diagnosis, several /multiple ED visits and hospitalizations progressing from primary care to secondary care specialist to tertiary healthcare level facilities. After this unfortunate incident he started developing several systemic health issues that since 2019 has proven very challenging to allow him to comply with the pursuing of a higher education and with the shadowing impediment of living any kind of productive fulfilling normal life. Five years and he still fighting this complex Myopathy with necrotic features combined with a form of Vasculitis Pan.

First, I would like to Thank You for your time to continue reading his story. Praying and positive thoughts have been our main support for George Michael, his sister, and his mom since this tragedy expanded into their lives. Unfortunately, health care and living costs have been unbearing to this family. My friend is a single mother of George Michael now 21 and a 28-year-old daughter since they were born. Like many immigrants, she came to the United States in pursuing of freedom from communist oppression from Cuba and looking for the “American Dream”, she managed to become a professional hairdresser and tirelessly serve her community while raising her children without child support from paternal side or any other support except her few colleagues and friends like me. Her family lives in Cuba from where she escaped to fight for a brighter future. Thus, the reason why I hope to raise some funds to assist George Michael and his family to cover 5 years of accumulating medical bills, the high cost of treatments therapy medicine, and the ongoing costs of traveling (hotels, transportation) and boarding to terciary facilities sometimes out of their state, also increasingly frequent inability to work steadily and consistently to earn a living.

They live in Mooresville, North Caroline and due to the rare nature of the illnesses George Michael is presenting and experiencing they had been challenged to expand their search for diagnostics and treatment to Durham North Caroline /Duke University and Jacksonville, Florida Mayo Clinic where he has been a patient for the last 3 and a half years. Fortunately, he has had the opportunity to encountered great compassionate dedicated doctors that due extensive research in both places had been able to come as close as possible and still working in trying to put together a plan of treatment that allows George Michael to function on daily basis and hopefully put these diseases on remission.

George M suffers of:

• His symptoms are accompanied by Dystonia, an extremely debilitating muscle spasms and involuntary movements.

• He has a chronic labrum tear on shoulder failing to respond to a prior surgical procedure, he will undergo a second attempt once diseases hopefully are on remission.

• He constituently agonizes from acute dangerous onsets of high blood pressure, despite receiving hypertension treatments normally above 100/160

• His generalized, very debilitating, and retractable pain, proven very difficult to treat and or control impeding the most basic functions of life like sleeping and eating. Such chronic pain has devastating consequences on him and their loved ones.

• Even with endless physical therapy for over 4 years, his mobility issues, hard to walk, seat or stand up has converted life in a real marathon for George Michael.

• He has been enduring IV infusions, lab works, imaging test, EMG’s multiple, nerve conduction studies, MRI’s, several invasives muscle and skin biopsies.

I personally thanks God and the kind caring employers that my friend has that has provided her with the possibility to keep her job since all these years of constant absenteeism and unpredictability to perform which had affected her productivity having to be involved caring of her son. She has been strong enough to go thru all these calamities, that our handsome George Michael had have and will have the warrior soul to keep fighting like a soldier with resilience, they will overcome the upcoming battles and his physical and mental pain. We strongly believe doctors will find the proper effective treatment and being able to provide the appropriate ongoing care that would allow George M to be able to return to a as close to a normal life, catch up with school and their have a better future ahead.

I hope and thank you in advance to each of you who had taken your time to read his story and able to donate some monetary assistance for them to recover this financial devastation, medical bills and bring joy and hope back in their lives. Thank you so much for your support and God bless you all. One more asks for this community while we continue to come together in support: even if you cannot donate, kindly share this post in all social media channels you might use.

Truly thank you!

Aramis

PS: Myopathy is a collective term for any disease affecting the muscles that control voluntary movement in the body. Patients develop muscle weakness as a result of muscle fiber dysfunction. Certain myopathies are hereditary in nature and can be passed down from parent to child.

Vasculitis is a rare group of diseases that causes swelling of artery walls. This decreases blood flow to areas of the body and can cause organ and tissue damage.