Hi, for those of you who don’t know, my name is Francis Colon, in June of 2022 I was diagnosed with a rare brain disease called Moyamoya. After having intense headaches for pretty much my whole life, I finally learned why! But with that answer came anxiety and fear.

Moyamoya disease is a rare progressive brain disease that restricts arteries and blood flow in the brain and leads to strokes and seizures. Many people who suffer from this disease don’t know they have it until it's discovered after having a stroke. Learning about this diagnosis was scary and has caused a lot of stress on my family and myself. I went from dreaming about my future plans to worrying about having a stroke that would severley affect my quality of life, and worring about wether I'd be there for my husband and daughter. I felt lucky to have been diagnosed early, before having a stroke because now I could try to find a way to treat it. I quickly found out how difficult it would be to find a Specialist who would even discuss treatment prior to having a stroke. This didn't make sense to me.

I’ve meet with many different doctors, after months of waiting for the appointment to see them. I’ve traveled from Miami to Jacksonville Florida to simply not make any progress in finding a specialist to help me, all the while stress and anxiety mounting. Finally a call came in on Friday, May 10th from Stanford Medicine in Palo Alto, CA. Doctor Gary Steinberg and his team there reviewed my medical files and images and are recommending bypass surgery for revascularization, to help minimize the risk of strokes in my future. Still very scary but a promissing form of treatment that could improve my chances of maintaing a good quality of life in the years to come.

This now brings me to why I'm here. I need your help to get better. We can't afford this all on our own. We are going to need some help with the cost assciated with this treatment. I am asking for any help you can afford to give that would help my family and I with the fiancial burden for this procedure. We will need to travel from Florida to California and stay for a minumum of three to four weeks before I would be cleared to return home. There's the cost of the surgery itself and the loss of income from being away from work, all of which we will have to contend with. Any donation will be appreciated greatly! And if you can't, please share my story along with a prayer for my family and I. We would also appreciate that greatly! Thank you.