<div>Aloha,
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<div>Our names are Alyssa and Tori, Melinda is our Aunt.
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<div>As long as we can remember, Aunt Melinda has been an adventurous, energetic, resourceful, quick thinker, and active multi-passionate person. That is until she was traumatically debilitated by the COVID-19 Delta Variant 2-years ago in 2021. 
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<div>We are seeking brain treatments from Brain Health Hawaii on Oahu over the next 10-weeks. Through Melinda’s research and consultation, the most promising, and really the ONLY current promising treatment available for Long Covid brain inflammation and cognitive issues, is called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (“TMS”). These treatments will be administered at a facility staffed by Neuropsychiatrists on Oahu. (Please see 'Treatment Information' for more on this cutting-edge therapy below.) For the duration of Melinda’s treatments, she will stay on Oahu for 10 weeks. She is seeking a place to stay as it’s not possible to commute daily from Maui to Oahu. Melinda’s insurance may pay for a portion of her treatments and office visits.
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<div>We would appreciate your donations, sharing this Go Fund Me to support our Aunt Melinda, and your prayers for her complete healing and return to her vibrant self.
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<div><strong>Melinda's Journey with Long Covid</strong>
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<div>Melinda is an artist, she paints and draws and is a metalsmith, she loves dancing hiking, and swimming in the ocean. She is an animal lover, including her 2 cats, Noe and Hoku, sheep and chickens. Melinda spent 20 years in business development in the semiconductor and tech industries before moving to Hawaii. On the Island of Hawaii, Melinda studied yoga, watsu, and massage, becoming a licensed massage therapist in the State of Hawaii. On Maui, she managed rental properties, a 24-room boutique retreat center, and owned several small businesses, including a Spa in Paia. She is a former educator of healing arts at the Maui School of Therapeutic Massage.
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<div>In September 2021, Melinda returned to Texas (her first trip from the islands after the COVID-19 lockdowns) to visit family and care for her beloved sister-in-law, our mom, Terri Alexander, at the end of her long and courageous battle with Lung Cancer. It was an excruciatingly difficult time for us all. After Mom passed, Melinda contracted the Covid-Delta variant, one of the most aggressive and deadly strains of the coronavirus. Covid Delta broke through her vaccinations and overcame Melinda in a matter of hours. She was rushed to the Emergency Room where they administered the life-saving and experimental monoclonal antibody treatment.
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<div>Over the next few days, Covid Delta continued to do damage as it attacked Melinda’s lungs, creating blood clots, scarring, and making it almost impossible to breathe. The panic attacks were terrifying and extreme. The virus further ravaged her heart, brain, and nervous system causing her to become bedridden. She immediately isolated herself to protect the rest of our family. Our Aunt’s vitality, and lively and playful spirit were diminished overnight by Covid Delta.
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<div>She returned home to Maui a shell of herself, in a wheelchair, and was confined to bed for three months, with the exception of mandatory walks to keep the blood flowing. Due to extreme fatigue and breathlessness, she struggled to walk a few steps or say a few words without gasping for breath. Her lungs felt like heavy hard bricks hanging in her chest. Her brain became inflamed causing immense brain fog making it impossible to think, function, pay bills, read, process information, make decisions, or navigate life. Her heart was damaged, she experienced a racing heart, tachycardia, and arrhythmias, her nervous system was riddled with polyneuropathy and tremors so strong it felt like she had a "wild animal running around in her chest." This all caused extreme sleep disturbance, central sleep apnea, mood disorders, panic attacks, anxiety, and depression.
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<div>Melinda has a number of specialists now, a Pulmonologist, Cardiologist, Neurologist, Dietician, and Neuropsychiatrist. She’s been scanned, MRIed, and tested. She has been diagnosed with Long Covid, but until now there were NO treatments available.
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<div>Over the next two years of recovery, she slowly gained strength, and learned to live with many of her changing symptoms, while slowly rebuilding her body and navigating her ‘new normal.’ Melinda began to enjoy and increase her physical activity. After 15 months she joined a book club to challenge her mind to read, comprehend, and remember a fictional book. It was challenging, but a welcome intellectual exercise toward a stronger brain. She began her beloved artwork again studying with a local fine artist to rebuild her hand-eye connections. Life was returning, albeit through a fog. The fog was getting lighter. Melinda was unable to return to work for 2+ years as a Massage Therapist, but with limited capacity was able to manage rental properties from home.
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<div>Then another shoe fell when Melinda contracted COVID-19 again in mid-July 2023, right before the Maui Wildfires. Melinda lives in Upcountry Kula and her house was surrounded by fires beside and below, the smoke invaded homes and harmed those with respiratory ailments, including Long Covid. Melinda was displaced due to smoke and lack of water for 5-weeks.
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<div>This second bout of Covid and stress from the Wildfires aggravated many of Melinda’s Long Covid symptoms, the worst being the brain inflammation. She was here Long Covid symptoms were reaggravated, especially the brain inflammation, causing extreme confusion, short-term memory loss, processing information, reading, decision making, problem-solving, fatigue, anxiety and limited ability to take care of daily living skills. Covid again hit Melinda hard. We liken her to be like a battery that needed a full recharge after draining only 2%. She just cannot recharge.
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<div>Throughout all of these Long Covid struggles, Melinda continues to hope and work toward recovery and being able to return to her prior state of health. Long Covid has diminished Melinda’s energy level and stamina. She is hopeful that these treatments will help her reawaken her cognitive abilities, revive her vitality, and find her way back to herself again. She also hopes to help others struggling with Long Covid find hope and healing.
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<div><strong>Treatment Information</strong>
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<div>Through Melinda’s research and consultation, the most promising, and really the ONLY current promising treatment available for Long Covid, is called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (“TMS”). These treatments will be administered at a facility staffed by Neuropsychiatrists on Oahu. The treatment is delivered in a course of 60 treatments, one per day for 60 days, Monday through Friday. TMS is proven for conditions such as depression and has shown to be effective in improving brain function for those with Long Covid. A diagnostic test of Melinda’s brain function showed a “noisy” brain and out-of-sync signals between the rear and front of the brain. There is hope here.
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<div>Melinda’s Neuropsychiatrist, Dr Keifer, said that COVID-19 presents itself as a Chemical Immune Concussion in the brain. Melinda’s EEG / Brain Scan showed too much brain activity when her brain should be resting. As I understand it, the damage is caused when the Covid spike protein crosses the blood-brain barrier and our own immune system responds and keeps on responding causing an inflammatory response that damages the brain, the nerve’s myelin sheaths are damaged, and this chemical immune response gums up the neural pathways of the brain, hence a Chemical-Immune Concussion. The signals keep trying to get through (much like the mistuned radio station), but all you ‘hear’ is static. The EEG “brain scan” validated Melinda’s symptoms of long COVID-19 brain wave impairment. He feels Melinda is a good candidate with an intriguing story as a previously high-functioning individual. He said “Most people with your abilities can usually find their way out of any problem” and understood the frustration and debilitating effect on someone like Melinda who could normally identify with her sharp and quick mind.
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<div><strong>Meet Dr. Keifer and witness how this helped a Hawaii News Now journalist at Brain Health Hawaii:</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzr3D_eqhhk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzr3D_eqhhk" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzr3D_eqhhk</a></a>
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<div><strong>Learn more about the treatment at the following links:</strong>
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<div><a href="https://www.netjournals.org/z_IRJMMS_23_007.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">International Research Journal of Medicine and Med</a><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9968785/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ical Sciences</a>
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<div><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9968785/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Japanese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine</a>
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<div>For the duration of Melinda’s treatments, she will stay on Oahu for 10 weeks. She is seeking a place to stay as it’s not possible to commute daily from Maui to Oahu. Melinda’s insurance may pay for a portion of her treatments and office visits.
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<div>Other costs expected will be the remainder of the treatment sessions not covered by insurance, air travel to Oahu from Maui, ground transportation, room and board on Oahu, and functional medicine treatment managed by Melinda’s physician support team. In addition to cash donations, Melinda could use donations of Hawaiian Airlines miles.
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<div>If you know others struggling with Long Covid on Maui or Hawaii in general please reach out to [email redacted] to be connected with the Long Covid Support Group where Melinda is an active member. Please help those challenged with debilitating long-term effects that can result from COVID-19.
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<div>Please donate, share this message, and send prayers for our Aunt Melinda on her road to healing! Thank you!
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Jerry Malott

Rob Gilchrest

St John's Episcopal Church

Melissa Blair

Keith & Lynette McCrary

Deborah McMenemy

Gergana Deenichina

Kim Musser

Michi Magee

Amy Fornero

Anonymous

Ronda Perwin

Father Jack

Janet Makua

Heather Mueller

Everett Chambers

Help Melinda Complete Brain Treatments on Oahu

Help Melinda Complete Brain Treatments on Oahu

Still $6,125 to go. Help us build momentum.