Medical bills for Linn Hagtvedt
Hi. I need to ask people out there for help, old friends and new friends and everyone who wants to give me a hand. My name is Linn, and I'm a norwegian female, living in Larvik. I am bedridden with the diagnosis ME, caused by severe infections. I was suddenly very ill April 2004 at a holiday in Asia, when I was 26 years old. At the hospital they found that I had a parasite (Giardia), and the doctors therefore gave me an anti-parasite medicine called Flagyl (metronidazole). Some of the symptoms got better, but still I was severly ill and the doctors didn't quite figure out the cause. I had stomach pain, nightly sweats, dizziness, chills, twitches and tingling all over the body, muscle pain and severe fatigue. I was under the care of a nice doctor at the infection department, but unfortunately they didn't figure out what I suffered from. After a while they asked; maybe it was ME/postviral fatiguesyndrom? I had to take a break from my part-time job and from the master studies at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. After a while I got even worse. At this point I became bedridden, and had to move to my mothers house for a while to have someone to take care of me.
It's been several years since then, and all this time I have been severly ill. I had to live in a nursing home for about 12 months, some years ago. Now I am in bed for 23,5 hours a day. I live in my own appartment, where I stay in a dark room. I suffer from diverse and severe neuro-immunological symptoms. I fight every hour to get through the day. The community nursing service visit me several times a day to give me food and care. I have received much help from my family and friends these years, both economically and practically. I am very grateful for that.
There's no treatment options at the hospitals available yet in Norway for people with the diagnosis ME, except cognitive behavioural therapy and coping. Although some doctors on a norwegian hospital are now doing research on MabThera/Rituximab, with great results on a group of ME-patients- a medicine sometimes used for different autoimmune disorders. But this medicine will not be available until many years in the future, and honestly the doctors would probably not give that to any patient with active infections causing the illness. I have already been doing lots of cognitive therapy and methods like Lightning Process and Reverse Therapy for several years- but I'm afraid it's absolutely not the solution and aim no more purpose other than coping, when the cause are untreatened infections and neuro-immunological illness as a consequence. I have also had very nice and talented people helping me these years, with acupuncture and other complementary therapies.
It is a challenge for the public health service in Norway to improve within these fields! It is necessary to improve competence and the testing procedures for many infections, especially vectorborne zoonoses. And it is necessary to understand that people with ME are NOT a homogeneous group of patients. Rather there seem to be many quite different causes which would benefit from individual approach for the determination of correct medical treatment. There is an urgent need for the doctors and researches to understand this. Some researchers are now able to find out with better and more thorougly testing, that many people with ME, actually are ill with severe vectorborne infections and should have had medical treatment and different diagnosis in the first place!
Last year some of my friends borrowed me money; so that I was able to find out what is causing my illness. The results from those thorougly tests showed that I actually have active and severe infections I probably got from some vector at the holiday in Asia 2004. I am so sad that they didn't find out earlier. Still, I have to fight for my health and life from where I am now. And one of the world's leading Medical Doctor on this field- clinician and researcher, wants to help me with the necessary medical treatment. The treatmentplan has started and will continue for a while, over the next months.
I'm therefore asking you for financial help to be able to pay- for the medicines, doctor consultations and follow-up tests. I was a student when I was ill, and therefore I don't have much money and neither do I get any loan in the bank with so little income. I'm not asking for big amounts, please understand that a small amount will make a big difference too. F.ex 5-10 USD is great. If there are lots of friends out there who wants to help me with small amounts, I will be forever grateful. Or any companies or associations who wants to contribute. If you want to use a bankaccount instead, my accountnumber is: 2440.12.48990. Or Vipps 97133271.
I also want to ask those of you who think this is a bad idea, to understand and respect that there's not possible for me to suffer like this any more and I need help to save my life.
Please feel free to share this site. Thanks a lot for reading my story! The picture I have used is from when I was healthy, back in 2004.
Sincerely, Linn Hagtvedt