Lyme Recovery for Amanda Rose

This fundraiser was started by Janet Birch in support of Amanda Rose. Some of you may know Rose as my son Chris Birch's best friend of 15 years.

A brief summary of lyme disease:

• Lyme is not formally acknowledged by the CDC or Western medical doctors, so none of the treatments are covered by insurance.

• It is a lifelong, debilitating disease with no known cure. It eventually becomes fatal.

• The best way to treat lyme is with holistic/naturopathic/herbal medicine. Those who have recently contracted lyme can treat it with antibiotics, but once it becomes chronic, abx are ineffective.

• It is one of the most complex & misunderstood diseases. More people get lyme each year than AIDS, and yet there is very little funding for lyme research or treatment.

• The cost of just one visit to a Lyme Literate Doctor (LLD) is $500-800.

• For more information, please watch the documentary film "The Quiet Pandemic" (on Amazon Prime).

A brief background of my experience with chronic lyme disease:

• I began to experience a long list of mysterious symptoms in June 2018. Within a few months, I was so sick that I could not get out of bed. I could no longer work, and I had to drop out of school one semester before attaining my bachelor’s degree.

• In December 2018 I found out that there was black mold in the house I had been living in for five years. I thought I had finally found the root cause of all my mysterious symptoms, after going to several specialists and being told repeatedly that “my labs were normal.”

• I had to move out of the house and throw away literally everything I owned because it had been contaminated by mold. I had no financial support at this time, and spent months living in my car with very few items of clothing. Within a few months, I felt a lot better. However, new symptoms started to emerge – chronic nerve pain & debilitating fatigue.

• In January 2020, I finally received a diagnosis for these other mysterious symptoms – chronic lyme disease. During the pandemic, I was able to complete my degree due to classes being online. I graduated in December 2020, 2 years later than originally planned. At this time I started experimenting with different treatments for lyme (Chinese herbs, Buhner herbs, vitamin IVs, detoxes, ozone therapy, etc.) & conducting 100s of hours of research on this complex disease.

• Since November 2021, I have been functional enough to work part time as a tutor & substitute teacher. Since I was young, my dream has been to become a teacher. I attempted to get a teaching credential in 2022, however I had to drop out of the program because I could not physically handle being on my feet due to the pain & fatigue I experience daily.

• In the past four years since I was diagnosed with lyme, I have not been able to afford treatment often. In 2022, I received a treatment grant from the lyme foundation. I was able to get treatment consistently for 6 months, and I went from being 60% functional to 80%. It has now been a year & a half since I received any treatment, and my health has declined once again.

I have been supporting myself financially since I was 16, and I grew up in crushing poverty, to say the least. I have never had any savings, and have struggled with homelessness on & off throughout my life. Despite this, I have remained resilient. All I wanted was to go to school, become a teacher, and help others in any way I can. I struggled throughout my 20s, going to school part time & working full time. It took me 6 years to get my bachelor’s, and I sacrificed everything to focus solely on my education. When I got sick, it devastated my dreams. Now, in 2024, I am about to pursue a two-year program for a master’s degree in school counseling. I am taking classes online, so that my health will no longer interfere with my ability to stay in school. I am very excited to return to school & become a counselor. However, I am quite worried about the state of my health at the moment. For the past few months, I have experienced very serious symptoms. I have been hospitalized twice since October. In December I couldn't walk for 5 days, and I'm terrified that I'll end up in a wheelchair, like many who suffer from lyme. I am worried that my inability to get treatment all these years has caught up with me, and the bacteria is now attacking my heart & brain. All I want is to finish school, help others, and progress in life. At the moment I work as a substitute teacher, and I make just enough to get by, with nothing left over for treatment. Any financial support towards treatment would mean the world to me, and would vastly improve my chances of surviving this illness, so that one day soon I can afford consistent treatment on my own. Thank you so much for hearing my story.

The money raised through this fundraiser will go towards treatment at the Lymestop clinic in Idaho, as well as towards herbs, supplements, and IVs. In order to get consistent treatment for a year, it will cost a minimum of 10,000. I have been told by my lyme doctor that due to the severity of lyme in my body, I need a minimum of two years of treatment.

If you have any questions about lyme disease or mold illness, please reach out to me – I have a wealth of knowledge on these subjects, and I love to help others who are navigating these awful illnesses in any way I can.