Help Kiana Overcome POTS and Crohn's

Hi everyone,

We live a pretty private life so please give me grace navigating how to be vulnerable about our current life situation. Forgive me if this is lengthy.

To those who don’t know me, I’m Kiana and I’m married to Danny Wagner. Within a month of marriage, the Lord blessed us with a honey moon baby and we now have 3 children, Emerson (4), Barrett(2) and Laurel(9mo). When Emerson was born, he was diagnosed with hydrocephalus and had to have emergency brain surgery. From that moment, we decided that we would make every sacrifice possible for me to be home with him. We truly have been living the best years of our life. It’s a privilege most Mothers don’t get to experience and not a day passes where I do not realize how blessed I am. We’ve had many hard days but every one has been worth it. However… up until recently we’ve had to make a lot of changes quickly because of my health. For the first time, we are touring daycares and praying for the financial means to afford it.

Over the years I have had unexplained health complications. Stroke symptoms, leading to a spinal tap, which led to an epidural patch, blood pressure issues, complicated migraines, heart palpitations, malaise, malabsorption, GI issues which led to an assumed diagnoses that I had crohns. I’ve tried many holistic pursuits on my own, doctor visits and hospital stays. Never truly understanding what was causing my symptoms but always optimistic I could get better.

Until this past month. My body decided it had enough and would no longer let me ignore my symptoms. I started to developed a really unwell feeling that I could not press through, experiencing panic attacks for the first time in my life. Over night I felt like a hypochondriac but I knew something was horribly wrong. It took months to finally learn I developed hyperadrenergic POTS causing extreme high blood pressure and heart rate (when standing), headache, dizziness, nausea, heat intolerance and becoming very close to fainting unexpectedly with no known trigger. Once we figured out it was POTS we learned if I laid down, all my vitals would go back to baseline almost immediately. Stood up and blood pressure would climb to 160/120, laid down and it would be 110/60. Stood up and heart rate would climb to 140, laid down and it went back to 60. I started to try to prioritize rest and laying as much as possible. But the reality is… this wasn’t sustainable as a stay at home Mom. For the last 3 weeks, so many friends and family have come to help us with Danny leaving work early when he could… But it continued to be unsustainable. Then last Saturday I started to experience unbearable abdominal pain. The next morning I went to the ER. They admitted me and I stayed for 3 days. They were only fixated on one thing and it was my CAT scan and small intestines. They believed all of my symptoms were coming from there. They wanted to confirm if it was crohns or not… and up until this point I truly didn’t understand the magnitude of what a “crohns diagnosis” meant. I did the colonoscopy with expectation for good news but sadly it was not. The doctors said it was horrible and confirmed without a doubt it was crohns. I won’t share the images but they were amazed I have managed to live this long with this condition and no medication… however they refused to let me accept I could go on any further without it. My biopsy’s are still not back but I’m optimistic. I’ve reached out to friends who have worked in the field and they confirmed it was truly as bad as the doctors were saying and the worst images they have ever seen. So I started the medication with no improvement yet. I don’t fully understand if there’s even a possibility of improvement but as usual, I’m very optimistic that I can try.

With all of this… This is the reason for this go fund me. Our expenses have increased by 1/3 of what they were a month ago for childcare alone. We’re hoping that as I improve, I can continue to care for our kids at home. For now I have several specialist follow up appts but I’m hoping with every ounce of my being that I can heal this and avoid obstruction/surgery and get to a holistic doctor. I’ve found several functional medicine doctors, some that specialize in POTS, others in GI / Crohns. My friend has had a lot of success meeting with Dr. Traster in Boca Raton. However since we’re out of town, for a week of treatment, protocols, hotel, food, childcare and gas, the cost ranges from $5,500-$7,000. Possibly more. I don’t know if this is even possible to raise this much money and I know to some this is outrageous but to me… anything is worth having my health back. Even if we can get to a local functional medicine doctor, there are a lot of things that can be done like individualized GI testing, protocols, diet and treatment plans.

So with this… Thank you for reading up until this point. If you feel led to help us in anyway, we will be forever grateful. If you can’t give, please don’t feel obligated. Thank you to everyone who has checked on us and been there for us this month. Please keep us in prayer.