My name is Christi Guinard, Paul and Cyndi Peck’s oldest daughter. My little sister, Mercy Hey, has been struggling with a variety of debilitating symptoms that have come on slowly over the past three years. She has gone from leading a very active lifestyle, and pouring her heart into her nursing job, to hardly being able to perform even light household chores.

She has seen upwards of 15-20 specialists, all of whom scratched their heads and passed her along to another specialist/therapist. This last summer she began having intense convulsive seizures and was admitted to the hospital. Shortly thereafter she had to resign from her job as a cardiac nurse as the seizures, light-sensitivity, dizziness, migraines, body pain and brain fog became too difficult to function through.

After pouring large amounts of money and time investigating what could possibly be wrong, she was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease, which was caused by a tick bite she received while growing up in rural Montana. Unfortunately, chronic Lyme disease is not a well-understood diagnosis in the medical community, and therefore only a handful of physicians in the United States are able to treat it. The methods of treating Lyme disease which has progressed to her severity is rarely covered by insurance.

She is currently being treated five days a week at a medical center in Reno, Nevada. The treatments include intense daily IV infusions and injections. The total cost of the eight weeks she will spend at the Center (including paying for hotels/Airbnb) is estimated to be between $30-40,000 dollars out of pocket. As Mercy has been unable to work since June, and her husband is currently finishing up his last year of seminary, the cost has been a massive burden, which feels impossible to avoid given the severity of her condition. Our parents, Paul and Cyndi, are using money from their future retirement to help support Mercy through this. Any gift or support you are willing and able to give would mean the world to us.