Judy’s Recovery and Healing

My sister, Judy, has worked uninterrupted since she was 16 years old. One morning in February of 2018, she woke up with some numbness in her face after 3 days of severe headaches from a new drug she had been prescribed for her rheumatoid arthritis. Judy being Judy, first took care of letting out Jack, feeding him, seeing Paul off to work, finishing morning chores as usual. Casually mentioning to Hanna, newly licensed RN, the numbness in her face, Hanna quickly determined this could be a stroke and drove Judy to Gates. After a couple days of tests and treatment, Judy was sent home with an aspirin a day and an appointment to follow up with neurologist. The next few days, she became progressively worse losing feeling and movement. Doctors from various specialties began testing and ruling out a number of illness and it was determined that the diagnosis was Neuromyelitis Optica or NMO for short. This is a rare neurological disorder, in which lesions found on her brain and spine, are causing paralysis from the abdomen down, numbness and some weakness in her arm, and blindness in her left eye. She has had a number of treatments and will need more. From February-mid May Judy was hospitalized and in rehab. She is home finally, with a visiting nurse 2x a week and she goes out for physical therapy 2x week. Judy ambulates with a wheelchair and she is learning to adapt to her current condition. There is the possibility of a remission within 6-12 months, that we are all praying for and hope you will too. In the meantime, Judy is unable to perform her job and will be relying on Paul’s income along with her social security earnings. So many people have reached out asking how to helpJudy and her family and so many people already have helped in so many ways. This fund is being set up for anyone who wants to help Judy and her family adapt to the new challenges of dealing with this disease until remission happens. This fund will be used to offset the costs of her care, equipment, and loss of income. Please feel free to share this with others who you think would be interested in contributing to this fund. On behalf of our whole family, Thank you so much for reading this and for anything that you can contribute.