Let’s help Jennifer with medical expenses!

For the last decade, Jennifer’s health has been in a steady decline, starting with some uncomfortable neurological and cardiac symptoms and snowballing into a host of complicated diagnoses (some of which are Hashimoto’s Disease, Graves Disease, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, and Mixed Connective Tissue Autoimmune Disease, and Secondary Adrenal Insufficiency). Those symptoms have left her housebound, wheelchair bound, and dependent on other people daily. Each day is a new combination of debilitating symptoms that compromises her ability to complete the daily tasks required of being a stay at home mom to four active boys. It’s hard for her to get kids to and from school and events, prep meals, and help with homework and studying when she can’t tolerate being upright without her heart racing and fainting. It’s hard for her to go out of the house for more than mandatory doctors appointments, because she has allergic reactions to everyday items like people’s scented laundry detergents, hair sprays, smoke, perfumes, etc. This same immune issue also causes severe allergic reactions to many foods, limiting her diet to only a few items. Because her autonomic nervous system doesn’t function the way it’s supposed to, she can’t be outside much. Her body doesn’t adjust properly to light and temperature changes and can’t tolerate even small increments of time being upright or any amount of physical exertion. She needs steroid supplementation to deal with stressors that seem normal to the average person which has now caused osteoporosis as an effect of that replacement therapy. They have spent thousands upon thousands of dollars (think: $20,000+ in just current hospital bills alone) and seen countless medical professionals in every field looking for ways to diagnose and control it all, but most of it has just Band-Aided the symptoms, leaving the underlying issue untouched. Jennifer has had to learn a lot about the human body throughout these years and, alongside her wonderful doctors, has come to the conclusion that a lot of the problems she deals with likely stemmed from a faulty stress response in her own brain (leading to a cascade of autoimmune disease and stress induced diseases as her body started at some point to OVER protect itself). In her search for help, she bumped into an amazing program called the Dynamic Neural Retraining System that has helped hundreds of people exactly like her to heal from the same complicated long-term chronic issues from which she suffers. It is a self-directed, neuroplasticity-based program that helps rewire the limbic system of the brain so that it can return to a normal stress response. The program’s location has always been too far away for Jennifer to travel to, so she started the program on DVDs at home to see if it would work for her. She was shocked to find it to be the first and only thing besides steroids that has ever helped alleviate any of her symptoms. Recently she was beyond excited to find out that this program will be holding an in-person seminar just three hours away in North Carolina in April. Going on blind faith, not thinking much about the logistics, she has signed up to go! Not knowing how she’s going to make it there, let alone through the weeklong seminar, but she is trusting in God’s plan and really excited to see what lies ahead!

Here’s where we can help! We would really like to offset some (if not all) of the costs to help this amazing woman and her family. Please prayerfully consider giving what you can to lighten some of this burden for this sweet family. And pray for her on this journey! Jennifer is the most selfless, giving person who does so much for our parish community, so let’s give back to her!! THANK YOU!