Mackenzie's Medical Journey

My granddaughter, Mackenzie Smithson is a beautiful 16 year old girl. Daughter to Ryan and Stacy and friend to many. A little over three years ago, Mackenzie's life was changed in an instant. Mackenzie was a young girl with a natural talent in the Arts. With a voice of an angel and a love for performing, Mackenzie was active in many activities local and afar. She competed in AMTC (Actor's Models and Talent for Christ) in 2010 and placed in the Top 40 Talent Showcase. This was a huge honor for anyone, especially a young girl. Not to mention, Mackenzie has the most kind heart you have ever met. A true beautiful soul. She loves anyone and everyone and believes in treating everyone with love and respect. She is the girl that will (and has on multiple occasions) reached out to the kid sitting alone in the lunchroom or being left out. So, to see her suffer and go through such a painful ordeal is beyond upsetting. Mackenzie developed tics that affected her head, eyes, mouth, arms and eventually resulted in vocal tics. These tics looked very "seizure like." Her gait and speech were also affected at one point. She suffers from frequent migraines and short term memory loss. After continously getting worse, Mackenzie's mom called Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and made an appointment with the first available pediatric neurologist. The appointment was about a week and a half away, but seemed like forever to Mackenzie and her family. She met with Dr. Bearden and was immediately admitted into the hospital. This was the beginning of a three year battle that we would later find out was Autoimmune Encephalitis. This is a potentially life threatening disease where your immune system attacks your brain. Mackenzie has had over 20 IVIG treatments, many high dosed steroid treatments, close to 80 Plasmapheresis treatments and most recently two chemotherapy treatments. Throughout these treatments, Mackenzie developed aseptic meningitis twice, as well as Cushing Syndrome. She also became severely immune supressed. Recently, Mackenzie's mom was forced to take a medical leave of absence at her job, to care for Mackenzie. This is with no pay, which you can imagine would be difficult for any family to endure. This family has already suffered so much emotionally, physically and spiritually. You can only imagine what this has done to their family financially. After a recent MRI and MRA, they found an artery pressing against her facial nerve. The most common cause of this is compression of the facial nerve by the anterior inferior cerebellar artery where the nerve begins at your brainstem.
It was recommended that Mackenzie see a Neurosurgeon for their opinion. Mackenzie saw two very qualified neurosurgeons recently (one at UPENN and one at Weill Cornell New York Presbyterian) and they both felt that Mackenzie could benefit from a Microvascular Decompression brain surgery. If you are not able to donate at this time, we completely understand. We just ask you to please keep Mackenzie in your prayers. Also, please share this page. We want to have as many people praying for her as possible.