Amy Nielson has created this GoFundMe to support Carmella and her family as she continues her fight for healing and recovery.

I have known Carmella since she was just 18 months old. From the moment I met her, she has been a radiant, beautiful soul—one of those rare people you meet in life with whom you feel an instant and unbreakable bond.

Her very name reflects growth, renewal, and spiritual nourishment. She embodies those qualities in her spirit and personality—bright, determined, and resilient. In her 18 years, she has already faced and overcome more than many will in a lifetime. But her journey is far from over.

While Carmella is surrounded by people who love her and pour into her spiritually, her body has struggled to take in the physical nourishment it so desperately needs from food. This is not a new battle. From the time she first came home from the hospital after birth, Carmella has faced extreme feeding issues. As a young child, I worked with her through early intervention therapy multiple times each week, trying to help her learn to eat. It was grueling—so very, very hard. But her family and I stood together in the trenches, fighting for every bit of progress. That kind of struggle forges a bond that lasts forever.

For a time, Carmella was able to enjoy the gift of eating—nourishment not just for her body, but also for her spirit and sense of independence. But battles like this leave scars, and the monster of illness has a way of returning.

Today, we find ourselves in the midst of yet another three-year struggle—one marked by long hospital stays, feeding tubes, and heartbreaking program denials that tell us she is either “not sick enough” or “too sick to handle.” These words, on paper, cannot capture the exhaustion, the tears, or the daily fight for hope that Carmella and her family face.

The family has suffered for almost three years, desperately trying to find specialists who could truly help Carmella. After years of waiting, they were finally accepted at a hospital in Ohio that treats her rare feeding disorder, rumination syndrome. She has just arrived, but her doctors have already warned that this will be a very long and arduous journey, as her case is the most extreme any of them has ever encountered. The family has endured hardship after hardship, and now the financial burden has become crushing. Every little bit of support will help lift this weight and give Carmella and her family the strength to focus fully on her recovery and restoration.

I am no longer her therapist. I now walk beside her simply as a friend—truly more like family—committed to doing all I can to help her in this race against time and against this relentless illness. My deepest desire is to see her regain the ability to eat again, to reclaim that basic joy and dignity most of us take for granted.

If you have ever witnessed a child who cannot eat, or a parent powerless to provide the simple nourishment of food, you understand the desperate depths families will go to in order to help. The physical, emotional, and financial toll is unimaginable.

Carmella is a fighter. But she cannot do this alone. Please consider donating to this fundraiser to give her the chance to continue fighting, to access the care and therapies she needs, and to help lift some of the crushing burdens her family has carried for so long.

Together, we can help Carmella hold onto hope, continue her fight, and one day find freedom from this battle.