Krystina's Surgery Travel Costs

Dear Friends and Family:

 

We are reaching out and attempting to start a fundraising campaign to help with travel costs associated with Krystina’s upcoming MVD (Microvascular Decompression) surgery at Stanford on June 20th.

 

By now, you may have heard that Krystina was diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia (TN). Most people are over 50 with this disease. Krystina is only 35 making it that much more difficult. TN is a rare facial nerve condition that inflicts debilitating pain. It is known as one of the most excruciating pains to humanity and is named the “suicide disease” because of the difficulty of treatment. Krystina struggles with wind of any kind hitting her face, temperature changes, chewing tough/hard foods, etc. During an attack, she can’t speak, swallow, or chew and becomes almost incapacitated with pain.

 

Krystina’s condition deteriorated rapidly over the last half-year or so, causing numerous trips to the ER, doctors, and countless attempts at medications to try to control it, all of which have failed.

 

She has had to step back from many things she used to do and loved in life, not knowing what or when the pain would be triggered, including her full-time job working in elementary education.

 

We have found the leading expert on Trigeminal Neuralgia at Stanford who, after one look at her MRI found the issue (an artery compressing the nerve in her brain) and is 90% confident he can give her 100% relief. These are tremendous odds for this disease that we can’t pass up to have her back for our kids and family.

 

So Krystina and her Mom will be traveling to California for 7-10 days for her to have Microvascular Decompression surgery (MVD). MVD involves opening the skull behind the ear (craniotomy) and inserting a sponge between the offending nerve and artery. The surgeon will visually look while she is open to make sure there aren’t any other offending veins or vessels. A bone cement will be used to seal the hole in the skull.

 

Krystina has always been the first one to want to help and give back to those around her in any way, including a lot of the charity work she does (FISH food drives, Police Unity Tour Fundraisers, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Military Relief during government shutdowns, etc.) and now she needs help.

 

Any assistance to help alleviate any of the stress of travel expenses, such as flights, lodging, meals, etc., as she leaves the rest of our family behind for the 7-10 days would be greatly appreciated. She will still have a lot of recovery to face when she returns home as well and removing as much stress as possible would be helpful for her.

 

We thank each and every one of you for your thoughts and kind words; please keep her and our family in your prayers.