Help Tía Oliver Battle Severe Shingles

My name is Doria Martuzzo and I’ve spent my life loving and looking after my children. Now, one of my children, Tía Oliver, is struggling with the onset of a painful, debilitating viral disease and she needs your help. Tía is a mother of three children, Valentin, 13, Zella, 4, and Sky, almost 3. She is a wonderful mother who juggles a lot and is one of the strongest people I know. Right now, Tía is in the middle of a real and horrible health battle.

Tia first knew something was wrong when she felt a piercing pain deep in her right ear and behind her right eye. She had a strange facial tension and nerve pain on the right side of her face and a horrible headache. This progressed to a pinching and burning sensation on her forehead and scalp and next she noticed a cluster of blisters on her upper forehead which quickly spread down the right side of her face, concentrating around and inside of her eye.

Tía knew that she needed to see a doctor right away. At Urgent Care the doctor told her that she was experiencing a medical emergency and to go to the ER immediately or she could lose her eyesight. Tia called me and said that I should come right away.

At the ER, the doctor “stained” her eye with a solution and discovered lesions all over the surface of her eye. We then drove directly to an emergency ophthalmologist where he found many lesions and a lot of inflammation behind her eye. He told her, “You have a very severe case of shingles which is compromising your eye.” The worst place to have shingles is on your face, as it can spread to your eyes, and that was what was happening to her. He told her that the worst case scenario would be that she could lose her vision in her right eye.

The doctor prescribed an antiviral medication and an antibiotic ointment. He offered to give her a medication for the pain, but said that unfortunately it didn’t help much with the neurological pain she was experiencing. He added that the effects of this nerve pain could last from weeks to months and that ultimately could stay in her system for years and result in other complications. Tía will need to follow up to make sure her eye doesn’t worsen.

So now what? Tía’s face is swollen and her right eye is swollen shut. She has diminished eyesight and debilitating headaches and sharp, electric shock sensations in her face, eye, ear, head, her jaw and neck. The pain comes on unexpectedly and forcefully. And now her feet are starting to hurt like pins and needles. And waves of nausea come and go. She has no appetite and this is a symptom of shingles. This is a vicious virus that is attacking her savagely. She says it feels like she has been hit by a truck. Tía is resilient, but this is next level. She is not only dealing with excruciating pain and uncertainty about her vision, but with unrelenting fatigue and the reality that she is most likely facing a long and painful road to recovery.

What makes this all the more complicated is that Tia had just begun her job search after moving to Texas from Oregon. She had settled the children into their new schools in Texas and had updated her resume. Then this nightmare struck. Unfortunately, with the way she feels and the way she looks, there is no way she can continue her job search at this time. Her finances are going to be significantly impacted.

Sometimes people tell us, if there is anything we can do to help, let us know. The first thing that you can do is to pray for Tia and her children. Tía is a strong woman with a strong faith in God. She has seen God help her through hard situations before and she will need His help again. Another way you can help is to make a contribution, no matter how small, to Tia’s GoFundme page. Even small contributions, when added together, will help Tia pay for her every day expenses like food, gasoline, utilities, etc as well as the unexpected medical bills that she is facing.

Financial support from you will not only help Tía financially, but also emotionally as she will see that people truly care and that we have her back during this debilitating time in her life. Please help Tía. She would appreciate your help more than you could ever know.