Help Shawna Reinhold's Critical Mayo Clinic Trip

My name is Samantha Simpson, and I’m reaching out to ask for your help.

My mom, Shawna Reinhold, is fighting a terrifying and painful medical battle that’s impacting her body, mind, and finances.

She’s lived with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) since 1988. In 2003, she suffered a heart attack and now lives with heart disease as well. In May, she traveled to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona to try and get answers, and she’s scheduled to return in August for a critical three-week stay. The doctors are urgently trying to determine what’s happening inside her body before it becomes too late.

Right now, her lungs are filling with granulomas—small masses that are multiplying rapidly. Two large ones are behind her heart, pushing on it and causing excruciating pain. Her inflammation is extremely high, and she also has a mass growing near her thyroid, as well as something in the bone of her right leg. She’s in constant nerve pain, but the only medication she can take is limited, because combining pain meds with her antidepressants could suppress her breathing—something she can’t risk with her lungs already compromised. She made the incredibly hard decision to prioritize her mental health, and now she only takes one 100mg nerve pill in the morning. The pain is constant and intense.

The Mayo Clinic is our last hope. But between travel, hotel, food, and what Medicare doesn’t cover, she is extremely overwhelmed. She’s on Social Security Disability and lives alone. A friend is going to drive her the 6-hour trip to the clinic, but the hotel on the Mayo campus alone is more than she can afford, not to mention gas and meals for the full three-week stay for the both of them.

Her last trip to Mayo drained her savings. We’re at the point where she is beyond scared not just for her health, but for how she will even get back to the Mayo. The tests they’ve run have given her conflicting results—pointing to several possible diseases, none of them easy to face, and some of which are worsened by treating the others. Her cardiologist has mentioned surgery, but we don’t yet know what kind.

I want my mom to live. I want her to be here to see my children grow up. I don’t want her to give up because she couldn’t afford the help she needed.

If you’re able to donate anything at all—no matter how small—it will go directly to helping her cover her next Mayo trip and the treatments that could save her life. If you can’t donate, please share this and send prayers and love our way.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading and caring.

— Samantha