Help Jenna and the May family battle Uveitis!
This is 16 year old Jenna May! A little over 6 years ago, her journey to battle Uveitis started. What this has meant for Jenna and her family is countless visits to the doctor’s and hospitals, along with countless experimental medications and treatments. A link will be included for those wanting to learn more about Uveitis, but in short, it is a disease that affects vision in one or both eyes due to sensitivity, pain, swelling, redness and blurred vision. For those with more severe cases of Uveitis, such as Jenna, treatment failure and damage caused by regular flare ups can lead to permanent blindness. Jenna continues to go to school full time, on top of her doctor appointments, but has unfortunately struggled more this year due to the constant strain that the computer screen causes on her Uveitis.
Jenna’s parents, John and Chelsea May, have nothing but a positive attitude around their family, friends, and coworkers. The Mays live and work full time on the Southside of Chicago in both the Mt. Greenwood and Beverly neighborhoods. Although!“Full time” might be an understatement as Chelsea works TWO full time jobs, including managing a restaurant and running her own business, while John currently holds THREE regular jobs, including a full time day position and several part-time side positions.
It has only been recently that the family has spoken out more on social media about Jenna’s struggles and the challenges the family has been facing as a result of treatment failures and insurance claim issues. This is not the type of family to ever ask for financial help (they instead continue to work more jobs) and as a friend, I felt there was no option but to ask for them. I know how hard this family works and how much time they sacrifice away from all three of their children, Jenna, Jamie and EJ. They deserve not only a break but all the help they can get from their friends, family and neighbors!
Your support will go directly to the family to help them cover the costs of Jenna’s medications, treatments, hospital visits and future surgery that their insurance will not cover. Treatments that will potentially save Jenna’s vision! This is unfortunately a disease that the medical field and everyone is still learning about and if you are unable to donate financially, PLEASE share this link with your friends and family in an attempt to not only help this family but to raise awareness for other families and individuals affected by this chronic illness.
For more information on Uveitis, you can click this link: What is Uveitis?