Keith's battle with Lyme Disease

My name is Jessica Vanden Houten.  My husband, Keith, and I are both 30 years old.  We are blessed with two children - 4 year old Matthias, and 2 year old Ava.   Keith and I met in college when we were 19 years old.  He was healthy, vibrant, and full of life.   We were married in 2009, and since that time, I have witnessed my husband's health slowly decline.   Today, 8 years later, I see my husband not living, but simply existing, with immense pain, sadness, and a hopelessness that he cannot be the husband and father he so longs to be.  

For so long Keith has lived with painfully tight muscles in his hips, back, shoulders, neck, and face.  He gets severe migraines that make him sensitive to light and sound.  Keith is no lazy person as he has endured for years the pain to go to work to provide for me and the kids.  I watched him come home despaired and exhausted, yet he continued to do everything he could to get well.  He would stretch, excercise, and use his Theracane for hours, blistering his hands, in an attempt to loosen his muscles.  He would then go to bed feeling a little better, only to wake up the next morning with his muscles hard as a rock again with no explanation.  

In an attempt to get well, Keith has pursued every route I can think of medically to get well.  He has been seen by several doctors, neurologists, rheumatolgist, chiropracators, physical therapists, TMJ specialist, acupuncture, massage, and pursued several diets and lifestyle changes.    He has received numerous diagnoses over the years.  Frustratingly, each diagnosis came with different recommendations, prescriptions, and plans of action - with Keith only continuing to get worse instead of better.  

After years of uncertainty and failed treatments, 2 months ago Keith was diagnosed with late stage Lyme Disease and many of its associated co-infections. 

He began an aggressive treatment plan with very strong anti-biotics as prescribed by his doctor.    He was fine for 3 weeks and we were hopeful with the treatment recommended by the clinic.   He then began having Herxheimer reactions (a worsening of symptoms in response to the increased release of bacterial die-off toxins).  For most Lymes patients, this reaction is  feeling like you have a cold or the flu for a short period of time (as the doctor told us).    For Keith it has been absolutely horrendous.    At the direction of his doctor, in October he stopped taking the anti-biotics in an effort to stop the herxing reaction.

I feel like I don't know where to begin, but since October, despite all of our numerous efforts to help Keith's body detox and get back to where he was, Keith has become ill to the point that I no longer no what to do except cry out for help by the mercy of God.

Keith's jaw muscles are so tight he has difficulty eating and has lost so much weight.  His chest and neck muscles tighten to the point where he has difficulty breathing and worries about suffocating.   He is up all night pacing in pain, unable to sleep.   He has developed very severe reactions to smells such as soaps, cleaners, perfumes.   His joints will lock up all over his body causing debilitating pain with each step he takes.   His throat is on fire.  His brain throbs against his skull.   He reacts to medications that once helped him and nothing eases his pain. 

Keith is completely incapacitated.  He cannot work.  He can no longer drive.  He cannot take walks outside due to car fumes immediately increasing his severe symptoms.  We cannot have visitors in the house because even the faintest smell of perfume or cologne will send him spiralling into a terrible reaction which leaves him up for days in pain with sensitivity to  light and sound.  He is anguished, depressed, and longs for it to end.   

Keith's body is infested with bacteria, viruses, fungi, and  toxic dead bacteria that his weakened immune system and liver cannot properly get rid of - all from Lyme's disease and its numerous coinfections that have weakened him for many years.   

My days are spent constantly caring for Keith and our young children.  I have had to turn down job offers due to Keith's unimaginable health downfall this month.  We have no income coming in except from the help we have received from family and friends.   As the days go by Keith shows no signs of improvement but continues to worsen, leaving us despaired and exhausted.

We feel stuck continuing treatment in town since it is done with anti-biotics that Keith's weakened body system cannot handle.

Through a dear friend at my church, I learned of a treatment facility in Kansas called the Hansa Center that sees many chronically ill patients and has a high success rate at healing people that have been otherwise incurable by every other doctor.    They strive only to restore the optimum integrity and function of every aspect of the patient, and from there disease symptoms fall away.  They treat only with natural methods and avoid anti-biotics.

After counseling with a dear friend, it is on our hearts to take a leap of faith, and we have set Keith up with a two week treatment program at the Hansa Center beginning on January 15, 2018.    The cost for this two week program is $9,550.00 plus additional costs for supplements to take home and continue the treatment program.   There are many patients similar to Keith or even more ill that have had their health restored by treating with this facility.   If it is in God's plan for Keith to go, He will make it happen for His glory alone.

I have never been more humbled than I am now, typing this with kids running and screaming for my attention while my husband lays on the couch in despair and there is nothing I know of I can do to help him.  

I am crushed and I don't know where else to turn.  I pray and humbly ask if God lays it on your hearts to help us pursue this treatment in January, I will forever be thankful.    Please pray for our family that Keith's health may be restored and he can function again as a father and husband.  Thank you.