Help Varushka on her Lyme Healing Journey

Hi, My name is Varushka Franceschi, and many of you might know me as a Producer, Filmmaker, and Accidental Activist. I moved to Callicoon, New York 10 years ago to help fight fracking and have been working on a film project about my experiences and research into the poisonous practice that had to be put on hold because of illness and also a tragic house fire that I still have not totally recovered from.

Since moving to upstate New York, I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, as well as Babesia and Bartonella (which are also tick-related). I did not know I had these chronic diseases until I had an accident and broke my foot and injured my knee and hip at the same time.

Since that accident, I was subsequently diagnosed with Hip Osteoarthritis and my ability to walk became increasingly difficult. After much research, I found out that Chronic Lyme disease can attack an area of the body that has been injured. Basically, the little Lymey bugs go to whatever is the weakest area of the body. Unfortunately, it has seriously affected my ability to walk normally as I have not been able to straighten my leg while standing or lying down. I also have had chronic excruciating pain especially while sleeping which makes it extremely difficult to get through the night. Living with chronic pain makes it very challenging to be able to function normally as many who have the same issue can very well understand.

Going down the healing path in the USA has been extremely challenging and when I saw one of the top Orthopedic doctors in New York, who charged me $500 for basically 10 minutes of his time, all he said to me was that I needed a hip replacement but he could not do it unless I could figure out how to straighten my leg! The way that they do the common hip replacements is that they go in from the side with minimal muscle cutting so that there is a very quick rehabilitation time period. I asked him for his guidance on being able to find a way to do that and he said he didn't know, but that I should figure it out. I then found out that the operation in New York CIty would cost me out of pocket $250,000 with a good majority of that cost going towards the one night hospital stay. So that left me with having to look at other options.

If there was another issue that was preventing me from straightening my leg then I had to get to the bottom of it and heal that before I could even contemplate a hip replacement.

So I traveled to Sweden and since I have access to medical care there (as I am a resident now), I continued to look for answers there. I was in Sweden for 6 months and worked with someone who does deep fascia release work with a proprietary Swedish technique that uses machines that can go deeper than just hands. I also worked with a non traditional healer who uses naturapathic medicine and my Lyme symptoms improved quite a bit. I had also done a series of ozone treatments that also helped me with the Lyme and I need to get back to that series of treatments as well.

As many might know and understand treating chronic Lyme which is my underlying issue is something that can be a lifelong process. By the time the Lyme has become chronic its really too late to do massive dosages of antibiotics. I did try the antibiotics and was so sick from them that I had to discontinue that avenue. However the naturapath that I worked with in Sweden helped me tremendously and the combination of the healing methods that I was doing in Sweden allowed me to be able to straighten my leg significantly more and also contributed to lessening the pain I have been experiencing.

I also worked with a physical therapist also in Sweden who gave me a series of exercises and told me about a clinic in Stockholm that has great success with people with my medical issues. This clinic does stem cell injections and has had the most success with people with hip issues like me. I met with them and they confirmed that they believed I could regain my mobility.

I have now been back in the US for 4 months but I calculated that I will need $15,000 to get to Sweden, start the stem cell treatment and continue with the other treatments and be able to stay there for 6 months to complete the healing process.

I am doing this fundraiser because I need to return to Sweden to continue on my healing journey so that I can walk again normally and be pain-free once more.

just a quick update post fire: I finally moved back into my house after much work to even get the insurance money to rebuild. I want to thank everyone who contributed to helping me during this very dark period. It was so deeply appreciated.

Thanks so much for your help!