Help Becky Get Treatment She Needs

Becky has been fighting the debilitating effects of Lyme disease for the last 15 years, through countless misdiagnoses, emergency room visits, and terrifying relapses. With the support of her friends, family, and doctors she feels closer than ever to overcoming this life threatening ordeal, but she needs our help. Her doctors are encouraging her to undertake a series of new treatments and possibly the only thing standing in the way of finally getting to good health, is the financial burden. Please help us support Becky in her fight.

If you have ever crossed paths with Becky, chances are you are a better person because of it.  She has enriched the lives of all around her, even amidst her seemingly insurmountable personal medical struggle. Her fierce independence and strength has driven her to seek out a variety of approaches to her treatment to ensure no stone is left unturned. Now she needs our help to continue her treatment path as the financial demands of fighting for her survival are crushing.

Becky was diagnosed with severe neurological Lyme disease and associated co-infections in 2012, almost ten years after her first debilitating symptoms began. The delay in receiving treatment for the combination of bacterial, viral, parasitic and fungal infections has led to an ongoing battle to maintain basic life functions for 15 years, and a cascade of disease processes that are very difficult to manage as well as to eradicate.  Becky’s infections have most notably penetrated her brain, where there continues to be extensive inflammation, inadequate blood flow, and signs of autoimmune disease.  There is growing concern that irreversible neurodegenerative processes are underway, and Becky and her family are incredibly motivated to find alternatives to this scenario. There is still hope that if the infections can be reduced enough, and the immune system supported enough, the body can do its work to eradicate this insidious disease and reverse any damage that has occurred.

The good news is that Becky is currently responding to the latest round of intensive IV antibiotics, which she started 11 months ago. Combining this treatment with herbal, immune, detox, and oxygen support therapies, and maintaining vital qigong and meditation practices, Becky is feeling better than she has in almost two years.

The time to pursue additional immune and detox support is now, while the infections are at least minimized and Becky’s body is strongest. This is where Becky could use your help.  Becky’s doctors would like her to see a neuro-immunologist in New York who specializes in neurological Lyme disease.  This is the next step in qualifying for two treatments that could be life-changing for Becky, and that are otherwise exceedingly expensive and difficult to obtain: IV IG (intravenous immunoglobulins, an immune support therapy), and plasmapheresis (blood filtration).  The trip to New York, testing, and initial treatment will cost approximately $10,000. The goal of the trip is to establish need so that insurance will cover the continuation of this potentially lifelong treatment.  Additionally, Becky’s doctors would like her to undergo hyperbaric oxygen therapy to increase oxygenation to the brain and assist in cellular repair.  This will include a minimum of 42 sessions in a pressurized chamber at a local facility that is an hour drive from where she lives.  The cost for 42 ‘dives’ is $5,250.  Monthly medication costs and detox therapies continue to be exorbitant, and the financial hardship for Becky’s family over these past 15 years has been immense.

Thank you for caring, and contributing with any amount you are able to share.   Your support means so much to Becky, her family, and those who love her!

Here Becky shares a bit, in her own words, of the live threatening struggle she has been facing:

I am grateful to be in place of renewed functionality right now, where I can go for walks several days a week and often speak and think at a normal pace.  I get glimpses of the energized and capable Becky that I once knew, and feel extremely motivated to do everything I can to help heal this body and return to a life in which I can participate and contribute more fully in the world around me.

This has been a long haul.  I could never have imagined 15 years ago when neurological symptoms abruptly began that I would spend the prime of my life fighting an insidious and debilitating tick-borne disease. Almost overnight, I went from enjoying a very strong 28-year-old body, building and operating a busy business, traveling, and actively playing in the backcountry around my home in Denali National Park, to being a very old woman who struggled to stand up and walk across the room, form sentences, and comprehend the world around me.Unfortunately, it wasn’t until 10 years later, after many many visits to doctors and medical institutions around the country,hospitalizations, tests, and diagnoses, that we learned that I have Lyme Disease as well as numerous associated infections, many of which had by then infiltrated my brain.  

Today, it is still taking everything I’ve got to stay on top of this disease, maintain a quality of joy and well-being, and try to prevent further deterioration.  Lyme disease can really wreak havoc, even on the strongest of bodies.  Like many others suffering from Lyme disease, I have a disregulated immune system and struggle with both immune deficiency as well as damaging autoimmune processes.  I manage adrenal insufficiency, basically manually driving my endocrine systemby taking steroid hormones four to five times a day, which in and of itself is life-threatening and a full-time job.  And I have learned that many of my symptoms arise from autonomic nervous system dysfunction and systemic inflammation that affect my eyes’ ability to converge and therefore read, my ability to form and comprehend language, and my ability to regulate blood pressure and body temperature and maintain basic stamina throughout the day.

I am now 11 months into intensive IV antibiotic therapy, my second round of IV antibiotics in five years. The disease has progressed in relapsing-remitting fashion, and while the antibiotics have been life-saving when the relapses occur, theyhave been unable to eradicate the infections that have by now burrowed deep into tissues throughout my body. Early on, I tried numerous times to return to work during remissions, including several years spent pursuing graduate work, only to fall more deeply into relapse each time.  I have had to learn the hard way that managing these diseases is currently my full time work.  In addition to antibiotics, I have recently spent four months near a Lyme clinic receiving IV immune and detox support, follow a strict diet and herbal regimen, use an oxygen concentrator to assist in cellular repair, use a variety of detox techniques daily, and am grateful to have strong qigong and meditation practices.

Recent testing shows that there is still lack of adequate blood flow in the brain and new autoimmune antibodies in the brain, both indicators that my long-term neurological disease might be turning into neurodegenerative disease.  I feel very motivated to do everything in my power to prevent that from happening.  It is my hope that along the way, working with research physicians, we will gain new insights into the progression and treatment of Lyme disease that may be of benefit to so many who are and will be suffering from this poorly understood disease.

There have been many gifts along this challenging journey, and I am exceedingly grateful for all that I do have, including the love and support of many incredible hearts.  That said, I can still envision a life in which I can work and play and laugh free from the constraints of debilitating illness.  It is with humility and deep gratitude that I witness friends extending this request of support to a much wider web than that which I can weave on my own.  Thank you for simply being here and bringing my life into yours. May you be well, and may our combined efforts help many others who are trying to understand this debilitating disease.