“Hi, I’m Trinity. My mommy is suffering from an autoimmune disease. She goes to the Emergency Room a lot. It’s sad to see her in the hospital all the time. I wish she could get better. We need more money so my mom can get medical supplies. She needs a wheelchair, a walker and equipment to test herself at home. And we have to drive far to get special help. I’ll let my dad explain the rest.”  
- Trinity, age 9

Trinity wanted to help her mom by adding some words to her moms crowd fund campaign.

It’s already been incredibly challenging for our 9 year old daughter with the covid isolation all summer in our tiny apartment.

And now being homeschooled without any interaction or mental stimulation from peers her own age. Just a really busy dad, and severely sick mom.

Trinity knows her mom is sick, but doesn’t understand why her mom isn’t getting any better.

She has a hard time understanding why mom can no longer do the things she use to do.

My wife, Karina is only in her 30s.

For Karina, who was going to school with dreams of building a career in Neuroscience, her current state of affairs effectively means that her life has come to a standstill.  

Karina needs your help with Medical Expenses.

In early 2018 Karina was first diagnosed with Graves Disease, hyper thyroidism which eventually went into remission in late 2019.

However, new symptoms have emerged.

This year, in 2020 she was diagnosed with POTS (Postural Tachycardia Syndrome) and her doctor thinks she has been battling the condition for years.

POTS is a life-altering and debilitating health condition that affects many parts of your body, and many health care professionals don't even know that POTS exists. 

When she changes positions, for example, if she gets up from laying position, her heart rate speeds up to uncontrollable extremities making her dizzy and often faint.

The illness (and medications administered to treat the illness) have led to a range of secondary complications, which have made it difficult for Karina to perform even the most basic daily functions.

An increase in Medications 6-7 weeks ago led to horrible side effects. She was hospitalized several times for dangerously low sodium levels and extremely high heart rate. Her hands and feet went ice cold to the touch and she developed brain fog.

Sometimes her symptoms attack in the middle of the middle night, we are woken out of sleep and have to rush her to the ER. We have been to the ER over 30 times in the last 6 weeks.

Meditations have stopped for now, but unfortunately one may have caused issues with her gallbladder. She’s been unable able to eat for a month with severe stomache pain. She takes weekly IV treatments.

3 days ago her GI discovered she has an opening in bile duct connected to gall bladder.

He ordered a endoscopy and a colonoscopy.

Further, another medication given for her Graves’ disease thyroid issue seem to induce an eye disease which requires very expensive medicine that our basic insurance won’t cover.

As a result of all of this she has been out of school and out of work for several years. And I’ve had to place more emphasis on her care at home then my own work.

I’m worling from home, using my skills and experience making best efforts to support my family, but my work is often distracted by unexpected rush visits to the Emergency Room, many times in the middle of the night leaving us all exhausted for days to follow.

It’s all been very challenging to manage.

She has filed for disability but has been denied several times because they obviously don’t understand her complicated condition. Yet we have supplied the judge with numerous notes from doctors stating that she can not work. The judge ordered her to see one of his own doctors who claimed she is able to work. Yet her primary care physician, cardiologist, neurologist, and GI all stated she is not in position to work. She’s practically been living in the hospital on and off for the last 6 weeks.

So we don’t receive any financial assistance. We have hired a disability advocate and applying all over again,

but the process could take 6 months to a year and even then she may get declined, again.

All of this set us way back financially and our credit card debt piling up to the point where filing bankruptcy may be the only option.

But then we lose credit cards. We are currently living off credit cards, so we are making best efforts to avoid this.

We live within our means in a small apartment and are not much of consumers or materialistic. Income goes toward bills and food and now medical expenses but it’s becoming overbearing.

Karina is still very weak and has no energy. At times crawling on the floor of our apartment is her only option to get around.

When they said her condition is “similar to congestive heart failure”, they weren’t kidding!

She needs a walker and a wheelchair is being discussed. Further, she often needs to see specialists who are located about 4 hours away. We live in Northern California where it gets extremely hot which isn’t conducive to her sensitivity to heat.
Our car isn’t the most dependable. It does not have a working A/C unit and requires several thousand dollars worth of work below before the A/C can he fixed. We can’t run the risk so we often need to rent a car which sets us back financially.

I’ve been unable to run Adept Epeditions, my tourism business this year due to Covid related travel restrictions, so like many others we are struggling financially just to get by.

We started this fund to help cover medical expenses and recovery. Funds will immeditately be used for transportation, gas to see specialists, a walker, wheelchair, medical devices she needs at home, medications not covered by insurance, other things my wife needs. Funds may also be used to help cover credit card which is now in excess of 30K. We are not asking for money to cover our entire debt, just a little extra to help us cover expenses during this time of need. 

Feelings of defeat may creep in at times, but my daughter and I remain hopeful that we can once more have our loving wife and mother be a part of our family life.

If you can help, even with a few dollars it will be greatly appreciated.

We understand many others are also struggling now, so if you can’t donate, please consider sharing this so others can see it.

Lets help Karina so she can restore her health and so we can get back to a position where we can help others.