Help Us Help Rebecca: She needs us!
Donation protected
As a family we have made the difficult decision to start a GoFundMe page to help Rebecca battle chronic Lyme Disease. The family is seeking funds to pursue a new, revolutionary treatment for Rebecca in hopes of her leading a symptom-free, normal life. It's been a decade long battle of uncertainty and suffering. Her story below tells a story of a strong young woman who has been battling this disease all this time and is no better then the day she started. In fact, there is no cure for Lyme Disease. This revolutionary treatment is a stem cell process that will rebuild her immune system so her body can do what it needs to do and fix itself. It's kinda like when your computer is so messed up you have to reinstall the operating system and start over. It's a pretty amazing process. Fix the body so it fixes itself. WOW!!!
**HEY YOU, I know you probably wont read all this because you have so much to do. We're lucky that you made it this far...
You have the strength to run off and do whatever you want on any given day, right?
Well, here are a couple paragraphs from Rebecca's story. Maybe you can get a glimpse of her life, and maybe, just maybe, you'll help us out. We need 300 people to give $100.
It’s been 6 years in treatment and I’m no better today than yesterday. I fight every day to just have another day but to be honest I’ve been lost lately. Losing the ability to drive, the ability to read a book - a core part of my being, the ability to sing - my identity, see a movie, hold a conversation longer than 5 minutes, eat normal food, digest normal food, breath, walk, SLEEP has even gotten to me. I’m not that same 21 year old with swine flu. I’m a 30 year old exhausted, heartbroken woman. Wife? Sister? Friend? Cousin? Daughter? Aunt? Those are all roles I don’t know how to play anymore. Mom? That seems an impossibility. After 6 years of pills and pointless treatments I need an answer. Am I going to survive this or do I not have a purpose?
Yes, I have another day to spend with my husband, our giant puppy, looking at pictures and videos of my niece and nephew, talk with my parents, say hi to my grandma, send love to my sisters, send hope to my friends, and to see the sun shine. But I also know I will wake up in pain, possible paralysis, possible seizure. I could wake-up dry heaving or coughing so badly I feel like I’m choking on something. I could wake-up shivering with no feeling in my hands and feet...
Every path to health may be different but I know with your help I can reach remission. One foot in front of the other!
Below you will find:
• Becca’s full story
• How you can help
• Click Here to Read more about Infusio’s Integrative Lyme Treatment
Rebecca's Story
I remember so vividly when my health started to decline. It was the summer of ’09. I had just graduated with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts, living in Los Angeles, running every day, dancing every day, auditioning as often as I could and singing my head off 24/7! Like always I went to my beloved summer camp during summer. I was at one of the first summer camps to have the swine flu outbreak and I too was one of those lucky statistics who got sick. Only I never came back from it.
My first official diagnosis was celiac disease. Thank you mom and the Dr. Oz Show! Hashimoto’s disease was not long after. My health declined pretty slowly that first year. I started loosing my hearing and shortly after was diagnosed with Cochlear Meniere’s Disease. I was treated with prednisone for about 4 months. For those who don’t have lyme disease or any illness, prednisone is an immune suppressant. Meaning, while I was being treated for cochlear meniere’s disease, we also suppressed my immune system to the point of allowing the borrelia spirochete to spiral deeper and deeper in to any tissue in my body. Fatigue started to set in and pain was a daily occurrence. We decided it was time to see a rheumatologist, they check every system in the body so they must have the answer. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and lupus. I remember the doctor telling me about what treatments I would need and what having a degenerative disorder meant. It was one of those Charlie Brown moments, he was talking but I couldn’t hear him pronounce any syllables, no actual words. His most important task was to make sure my parents understood what this meant for us, how my life would change. After talking with the doctor and looking in to treatment for lupus we thought to try to get a second opinion.
I tried to keep up and live a normal life. Go to school, get a career, I kept up with dancing and singing lessons. I moved back to LA with my now husband and was working a new part time job. But I couldn’t keep up and it wasn’t normal for me. I started having more severe hormonal problems. My period was never regular growing up but it wasn’t until I started getting severe abdominal pains after sex that I thought there was a problem. It was time to take me to the top doctors that we could get in to. We went to UCLA Medical Center where I had my first experience with being told I was too young to be this sick, the doctor even scoffed at my celiac and hashimoto’s diagnosis with the positive blood work and biopsy in his hand. But I knew he wasn’t right, I knew something was wrong in my body and I had to figure it out.
Next was Stanford Medical Center. Let me just say this place still brings up such anger in me to this day! Not only was I scared to go in but I had prepared for months for this appointment. I had organized EVERY blood test, every x-ray, every MRI, every surgery report, every single medication I had ever been on and put it in to this massive pink 3-ring binder. My dad managed to get me in to an internal specialist who was brilliant and well known from coast-to-coast. Just one look at me and my giant pink binder and I was deemed “depressed” and attention-seeking. No physical exam, no blood work. Nothing! I was completely devastated. Completely broken hearted. If they thought I was a crazy woman looking for attention, then why would anyone else deem me sane? Maybe I am crazy.
It was the Dr. Oz show that saved me again! I know, it sounds like an advertisement or something but it’s the truth! He happened to be talking about tick-borne illnesses on a random episode my mom was watching again and she’s not a Dr. Oz fanatic ... or maybe she is, but as far as I know it was another random occurrence. My health started to decline more, I had moved back to my hometown and started working at a golf course. After a couple of months, I started to get these right side tremors - this was when my mom watched the lyme episode. We were searching for answers, anything to help us. All my symptoms matched up, even all my prior diagnosis. It was something called Chronic Lyme Disease, not common on the West Coast they said. Maybe it was from my family trips to the east coast? Maybe it was from traveling to Israel? Maybe I got it from one of the two ticks that bit me at my beloved summer camp when I was 10?
We got an appointment with one of the top Lyme Literate Doctor’s (LLMD) in San Francisco and the first appointment changed my life. I was officially diagnosed with chronic lyme disease. I had been validated! It was incredible to not be told I was crazy, that I was an attention seeking woman, that it was all in my head. He had an answer for us, there was no cure but there could be remission. Or so we thought.
Even though my first doctor helped me in more ways than I could thank him, his treatment made me worse. He helped me get through a veterinary technician program. He helped me survive some of the career world but pushed my body too hard and I wound up in the ICU. We couldn’t get my seizures under control and I was admitted to the hospital for a few days. The normal seizure medication wasn’t working on me and I wasn’t waking up. It was my mom’s 60th birthday and the family surprised her with my Aunt coming in. Once I woke-up they decided to have a psychological team come in to examine me because my test results were coming back normal. This time they talked to my parents, telling them this was all in my head and they recommended I be admitted into the psych ward. Luckily, my parents have always stood by me and they knew we had to keep pushing with lyme treatment.
We learned while I was in the ICU they gave me the flu shot which severely damaged my immune system. My seizures became a more regular occurance, gabapentin, lyrica, nothing was helping. I was having multiple a day and I was dropped as a patient because my LLMD’s normal Lyme protocol wasn’t working anymore. We were lost again. After 4 years of, “we’ll get you to remission” and antibiotic after antibiotic I was told he would no longer see me until I saw the neurologist, the one that wanted to put me in the psych ward, again! I didn’t know what to do so I looked for help.
In Sacramento, we have an amazing Lyme community. Our support page was able to point me into the direction of my current LLMD who has been able to help bring me so many more answers. Since then, I’ve been diagnosed with anaplasma, errlichia, h-pylori, babesia, bartonella, mold toxicity, heavy metal poisoning - apparently I’m the tin-man, polycystic ovarian syndrome, encephalitis, eosinophilic esophagitis, mast cell activation syndrome, non- epileptic seizures, and porphyria. That last one made a huge disturbance in my treatment plan because of it I cannot take conventional medication for lyme disease, not that it would make it any easier to treat, or any other illness. My body doesn’t break down medication the same way you do. I have constant neurological problems which could be due to lyme, bartonella, porphyria or just my current nervous system.
Since this last November, most of my days have been spent in bed. I’ve lost 40 pounds without meaning to and no longer recognize myself. We’re testing my heart to see if lyme has affected it and we need to get my brain looked at again. My treatment has stalled because we can’t do much else with conventional treatment and insurance wants to charge me $180 a day for IV antibiotic therapy. The thing is the CDC doesn’t believe in late-stage lyme, that means no insurance coverage. No insurance coverage for tests, x-rays, MRI’s, and most importantly medication. My husband and I spend at least $1,000 a month on my medication. For a long time we needed my parents help affording my Babesia medication which was $1,000 a month by itself, not adding any other medications on top of that.
It’s been 6 years in treatment and I’m no better today than yesterday. I fight every day to just have another day but to be honest I’ve been lost lately. Losing the ability to drive, the ability to read a book - a core part of my being, the ability to sing - my identity, see a movie, hold a conversation longer than 5 minutes, eat normal food, digest normal food, breath, walk, SLEEP has even gotten to me. I’m not that same 21 year old with swine flu. I’m a 30 year old exhausted, heartbroken woman. Wife? Sister? Friend? Cousin? Daughter? Aunt? Those are all roles I don’t know how to play anymore. Mom? That seems an impossibility. After 6 years of pills, after porphyria, after treatment stalling I need something. I need an answer, one way or the other. Am I going to survive this or do I not have a purpose?
That’s where Infusio comes in. You see, being chronically ill and staying in all the time used to give you no option for a social life. Today, that is no longer a huge problem. I started making friends in Ireland, in New Jersey, in Sweden, in Florida, in Mexico, all over the world and they were all Lymie’s like me! The most incredible part is that we can see what other people are doing. If anyone is getting better. I first started looking into Infusio Frankfurt when I saw one strong ass woman, after being sick for twenty years and multiple heart surgeries and kids and who was bedridden for 5 years, travelling! She was up and working again, she travelled to three different countries in two months! She was by no means cured, still had pain and still had bad days, but she was significantly better - she was present! This place had to be right, so off to Germany? Luckily, they opened up a location in Beverly Hills about a year ago - only 7 hours away from me. I could seek treatment and get healthy but at what cost.
Tough days are a part of every chronic illness and depression comes with it. I’m not crazy. I’m not attention seeking. I’m sick and I need your help. As I’m typing this it’s 4:30 in the morning and my painsomnia is insane. I can’t sleep due to the joint pain and swelling and this stupid spot in my back has just been killing me, I feel like I can snap in half. I’ve had to move out front to the couch so I don’t wake my husband, he takes such good care of me and needs his sleep. My stomach is rumbling and at every grumble I feel a tight pain in my stomach and upper left abdomen, something we haven’t figured out yet. I have to stick coffee up my butt again today ... and do an Epsom salt bath, which is definitely not as bad as the former, but another detox chore.
Yes, I have another day to spend with my husband, our giant puppy, looking at pictures and videos of my niece and nephew, talk with my parents, say hi to my grandma, send love to my sisters, send hope to my friends, and to see the sun shine. But I also know I will wake up in pain, possible paralysis, possible seizure. I could wake-up dry heaving or coughing so badly I feel like I’m choking on something. I could wake-up shivering with no feeling in my hands and feet. My pattern lately has been dry-heaving and cold. My body seems to need sleep right now and I can only stay up for a couple hours at a time. If I need to push further than that my right leg paralysis eventually kicks in and my pain becomes uncontrollable. I’ve started pool therapy but at the end of my last session I had a seizure and haven’t been able to return yet. Every path to health may be different but I know with your help I can reach remission. One foot in front of the other!
How You Can Help
Recently we learned stem cell transplantation for Lyme has become available in the U.S. This treatment had huge success in Germany in terms of remission and healing the long time damaged immune system. However, it is extremely expensive (est. $30,000 for two weeks of intense treatment) and Rebecca has exhausted all of her resources.
As most of you know, Rebecca and Dan have always persevered when faced with a challenge. They have been fiercely independent and private about the costs of Rebecca's medical bills but at the same time will stop at nothing to help her recover.
Asking for monetary aid from family and friends is their last resort. Now is the time to put pride aside and seek the help of the community to help Rebecca lead a normal life.
Rebecca is an amazing woman, with an incredibly bright future ahead. Please consider donating to help her in this battle that I know wholeheartedly she will overcome.
Thank you immensely for your support and please share this page with others. We look forward to updating you on Rebecca's journey in the months to come.
**HEY YOU, I know you probably wont read all this because you have so much to do. We're lucky that you made it this far...
You have the strength to run off and do whatever you want on any given day, right?
Well, here are a couple paragraphs from Rebecca's story. Maybe you can get a glimpse of her life, and maybe, just maybe, you'll help us out. We need 300 people to give $100.
It’s been 6 years in treatment and I’m no better today than yesterday. I fight every day to just have another day but to be honest I’ve been lost lately. Losing the ability to drive, the ability to read a book - a core part of my being, the ability to sing - my identity, see a movie, hold a conversation longer than 5 minutes, eat normal food, digest normal food, breath, walk, SLEEP has even gotten to me. I’m not that same 21 year old with swine flu. I’m a 30 year old exhausted, heartbroken woman. Wife? Sister? Friend? Cousin? Daughter? Aunt? Those are all roles I don’t know how to play anymore. Mom? That seems an impossibility. After 6 years of pills and pointless treatments I need an answer. Am I going to survive this or do I not have a purpose?
Yes, I have another day to spend with my husband, our giant puppy, looking at pictures and videos of my niece and nephew, talk with my parents, say hi to my grandma, send love to my sisters, send hope to my friends, and to see the sun shine. But I also know I will wake up in pain, possible paralysis, possible seizure. I could wake-up dry heaving or coughing so badly I feel like I’m choking on something. I could wake-up shivering with no feeling in my hands and feet...
Every path to health may be different but I know with your help I can reach remission. One foot in front of the other!
Below you will find:
• Becca’s full story
• How you can help
• Click Here to Read more about Infusio’s Integrative Lyme Treatment
Rebecca's Story
I remember so vividly when my health started to decline. It was the summer of ’09. I had just graduated with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts, living in Los Angeles, running every day, dancing every day, auditioning as often as I could and singing my head off 24/7! Like always I went to my beloved summer camp during summer. I was at one of the first summer camps to have the swine flu outbreak and I too was one of those lucky statistics who got sick. Only I never came back from it.
My first official diagnosis was celiac disease. Thank you mom and the Dr. Oz Show! Hashimoto’s disease was not long after. My health declined pretty slowly that first year. I started loosing my hearing and shortly after was diagnosed with Cochlear Meniere’s Disease. I was treated with prednisone for about 4 months. For those who don’t have lyme disease or any illness, prednisone is an immune suppressant. Meaning, while I was being treated for cochlear meniere’s disease, we also suppressed my immune system to the point of allowing the borrelia spirochete to spiral deeper and deeper in to any tissue in my body. Fatigue started to set in and pain was a daily occurrence. We decided it was time to see a rheumatologist, they check every system in the body so they must have the answer. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and lupus. I remember the doctor telling me about what treatments I would need and what having a degenerative disorder meant. It was one of those Charlie Brown moments, he was talking but I couldn’t hear him pronounce any syllables, no actual words. His most important task was to make sure my parents understood what this meant for us, how my life would change. After talking with the doctor and looking in to treatment for lupus we thought to try to get a second opinion.
I tried to keep up and live a normal life. Go to school, get a career, I kept up with dancing and singing lessons. I moved back to LA with my now husband and was working a new part time job. But I couldn’t keep up and it wasn’t normal for me. I started having more severe hormonal problems. My period was never regular growing up but it wasn’t until I started getting severe abdominal pains after sex that I thought there was a problem. It was time to take me to the top doctors that we could get in to. We went to UCLA Medical Center where I had my first experience with being told I was too young to be this sick, the doctor even scoffed at my celiac and hashimoto’s diagnosis with the positive blood work and biopsy in his hand. But I knew he wasn’t right, I knew something was wrong in my body and I had to figure it out.
Next was Stanford Medical Center. Let me just say this place still brings up such anger in me to this day! Not only was I scared to go in but I had prepared for months for this appointment. I had organized EVERY blood test, every x-ray, every MRI, every surgery report, every single medication I had ever been on and put it in to this massive pink 3-ring binder. My dad managed to get me in to an internal specialist who was brilliant and well known from coast-to-coast. Just one look at me and my giant pink binder and I was deemed “depressed” and attention-seeking. No physical exam, no blood work. Nothing! I was completely devastated. Completely broken hearted. If they thought I was a crazy woman looking for attention, then why would anyone else deem me sane? Maybe I am crazy.
It was the Dr. Oz show that saved me again! I know, it sounds like an advertisement or something but it’s the truth! He happened to be talking about tick-borne illnesses on a random episode my mom was watching again and she’s not a Dr. Oz fanatic ... or maybe she is, but as far as I know it was another random occurrence. My health started to decline more, I had moved back to my hometown and started working at a golf course. After a couple of months, I started to get these right side tremors - this was when my mom watched the lyme episode. We were searching for answers, anything to help us. All my symptoms matched up, even all my prior diagnosis. It was something called Chronic Lyme Disease, not common on the West Coast they said. Maybe it was from my family trips to the east coast? Maybe it was from traveling to Israel? Maybe I got it from one of the two ticks that bit me at my beloved summer camp when I was 10?
We got an appointment with one of the top Lyme Literate Doctor’s (LLMD) in San Francisco and the first appointment changed my life. I was officially diagnosed with chronic lyme disease. I had been validated! It was incredible to not be told I was crazy, that I was an attention seeking woman, that it was all in my head. He had an answer for us, there was no cure but there could be remission. Or so we thought.
Even though my first doctor helped me in more ways than I could thank him, his treatment made me worse. He helped me get through a veterinary technician program. He helped me survive some of the career world but pushed my body too hard and I wound up in the ICU. We couldn’t get my seizures under control and I was admitted to the hospital for a few days. The normal seizure medication wasn’t working on me and I wasn’t waking up. It was my mom’s 60th birthday and the family surprised her with my Aunt coming in. Once I woke-up they decided to have a psychological team come in to examine me because my test results were coming back normal. This time they talked to my parents, telling them this was all in my head and they recommended I be admitted into the psych ward. Luckily, my parents have always stood by me and they knew we had to keep pushing with lyme treatment.
We learned while I was in the ICU they gave me the flu shot which severely damaged my immune system. My seizures became a more regular occurance, gabapentin, lyrica, nothing was helping. I was having multiple a day and I was dropped as a patient because my LLMD’s normal Lyme protocol wasn’t working anymore. We were lost again. After 4 years of, “we’ll get you to remission” and antibiotic after antibiotic I was told he would no longer see me until I saw the neurologist, the one that wanted to put me in the psych ward, again! I didn’t know what to do so I looked for help.
In Sacramento, we have an amazing Lyme community. Our support page was able to point me into the direction of my current LLMD who has been able to help bring me so many more answers. Since then, I’ve been diagnosed with anaplasma, errlichia, h-pylori, babesia, bartonella, mold toxicity, heavy metal poisoning - apparently I’m the tin-man, polycystic ovarian syndrome, encephalitis, eosinophilic esophagitis, mast cell activation syndrome, non- epileptic seizures, and porphyria. That last one made a huge disturbance in my treatment plan because of it I cannot take conventional medication for lyme disease, not that it would make it any easier to treat, or any other illness. My body doesn’t break down medication the same way you do. I have constant neurological problems which could be due to lyme, bartonella, porphyria or just my current nervous system.
Since this last November, most of my days have been spent in bed. I’ve lost 40 pounds without meaning to and no longer recognize myself. We’re testing my heart to see if lyme has affected it and we need to get my brain looked at again. My treatment has stalled because we can’t do much else with conventional treatment and insurance wants to charge me $180 a day for IV antibiotic therapy. The thing is the CDC doesn’t believe in late-stage lyme, that means no insurance coverage. No insurance coverage for tests, x-rays, MRI’s, and most importantly medication. My husband and I spend at least $1,000 a month on my medication. For a long time we needed my parents help affording my Babesia medication which was $1,000 a month by itself, not adding any other medications on top of that.
It’s been 6 years in treatment and I’m no better today than yesterday. I fight every day to just have another day but to be honest I’ve been lost lately. Losing the ability to drive, the ability to read a book - a core part of my being, the ability to sing - my identity, see a movie, hold a conversation longer than 5 minutes, eat normal food, digest normal food, breath, walk, SLEEP has even gotten to me. I’m not that same 21 year old with swine flu. I’m a 30 year old exhausted, heartbroken woman. Wife? Sister? Friend? Cousin? Daughter? Aunt? Those are all roles I don’t know how to play anymore. Mom? That seems an impossibility. After 6 years of pills, after porphyria, after treatment stalling I need something. I need an answer, one way or the other. Am I going to survive this or do I not have a purpose?
That’s where Infusio comes in. You see, being chronically ill and staying in all the time used to give you no option for a social life. Today, that is no longer a huge problem. I started making friends in Ireland, in New Jersey, in Sweden, in Florida, in Mexico, all over the world and they were all Lymie’s like me! The most incredible part is that we can see what other people are doing. If anyone is getting better. I first started looking into Infusio Frankfurt when I saw one strong ass woman, after being sick for twenty years and multiple heart surgeries and kids and who was bedridden for 5 years, travelling! She was up and working again, she travelled to three different countries in two months! She was by no means cured, still had pain and still had bad days, but she was significantly better - she was present! This place had to be right, so off to Germany? Luckily, they opened up a location in Beverly Hills about a year ago - only 7 hours away from me. I could seek treatment and get healthy but at what cost.
Tough days are a part of every chronic illness and depression comes with it. I’m not crazy. I’m not attention seeking. I’m sick and I need your help. As I’m typing this it’s 4:30 in the morning and my painsomnia is insane. I can’t sleep due to the joint pain and swelling and this stupid spot in my back has just been killing me, I feel like I can snap in half. I’ve had to move out front to the couch so I don’t wake my husband, he takes such good care of me and needs his sleep. My stomach is rumbling and at every grumble I feel a tight pain in my stomach and upper left abdomen, something we haven’t figured out yet. I have to stick coffee up my butt again today ... and do an Epsom salt bath, which is definitely not as bad as the former, but another detox chore.
Yes, I have another day to spend with my husband, our giant puppy, looking at pictures and videos of my niece and nephew, talk with my parents, say hi to my grandma, send love to my sisters, send hope to my friends, and to see the sun shine. But I also know I will wake up in pain, possible paralysis, possible seizure. I could wake-up dry heaving or coughing so badly I feel like I’m choking on something. I could wake-up shivering with no feeling in my hands and feet. My pattern lately has been dry-heaving and cold. My body seems to need sleep right now and I can only stay up for a couple hours at a time. If I need to push further than that my right leg paralysis eventually kicks in and my pain becomes uncontrollable. I’ve started pool therapy but at the end of my last session I had a seizure and haven’t been able to return yet. Every path to health may be different but I know with your help I can reach remission. One foot in front of the other!
How You Can Help
Recently we learned stem cell transplantation for Lyme has become available in the U.S. This treatment had huge success in Germany in terms of remission and healing the long time damaged immune system. However, it is extremely expensive (est. $30,000 for two weeks of intense treatment) and Rebecca has exhausted all of her resources.
As most of you know, Rebecca and Dan have always persevered when faced with a challenge. They have been fiercely independent and private about the costs of Rebecca's medical bills but at the same time will stop at nothing to help her recover.
Asking for monetary aid from family and friends is their last resort. Now is the time to put pride aside and seek the help of the community to help Rebecca lead a normal life.
Rebecca is an amazing woman, with an incredibly bright future ahead. Please consider donating to help her in this battle that I know wholeheartedly she will overcome.
Thank you immensely for your support and please share this page with others. We look forward to updating you on Rebecca's journey in the months to come.
Co-organizers (11)
Jordan Nicolaides
Organizer
Redondo Beach, CA
Rebecca Bressler
Beneficiary
Barbara Cohan
Co-organizer
jeremy nicolaides
Co-organizer
Meghan Cohan
Co-organizer
Erica Fast
Co-organizer