Support Lauren's Fight for Health and Recovery

Hi, my name is Danielle and I am raising funds for my best friend Lauren. For those of you who do not know Lauren, she is an energetic, fun-loving, kind soul. She always has something witty to say, always vibrant, and always making sure that the needs of others come before hers.

Lauren has had a very rough year with her health. It started with minor stomach discomfort in July, which grew into debilitating stomach pains every time she attempted to eat or drink anything by September. This caused her to lose weight rapidly. The pains, combined with the lack of nutrition, have caused her to not be able to go to work anymore. She went from doctor to doctor trying to get answers as to why her stomach was hurting so badly, to the point of not even being able to function by herself. She had lost almost 40 lbs by October.

After four months of minimal answers and in and out of 8 different hospitals, the right doctor seemingly came along and was able to, so we thought, diagnose the problem. Lauren was suffering from chronic pancreatitis due to a congenital defect of her pancreas, known as pancreatic divisum. Unfortunately, with the amount of time it took for someone to properly diagnose her, the resulting acute pancreatitis became chronic and her other organs also became damaged. She experienced sloughing esophagus known as esophagitis dissecans, hepatitis, and her pancreatic lipase levels were in the thousands and not going back to normal.

They had to perform a surgical procedure known as an endoscopic retrograde cholangio pancreatography with two sphincterotomies and inserted a stent into the pancreas. All of this was supposed prevent reoccurring pancreatitis and heal all of the current symptoms that she was having. For something that should have been a minimally invasive procedure, Lauren was the unlucky patient to experience life-threatening complications. Not only was this procedure unsuccessful, but her lipase levels were not going down, they were getting higher. The esophagitis dissecans much worse, and the pain levels unimaginable. The doctors decided to insert a PICC line to bypass anything orally to allow the pancreas to settle down. She received TPN nutrition for a period of time, which only made things worse.

Lauren is currently in the ICU at Cooper University Hospital in New Jersey. She has undergone multiple other procedures which have now left her with a pleural effusion, a nasojejunal tube for nutrition, severe pain, and most recently, sepsis on top of everything else. She was a healthy 31 year old six months ago, she has gone severely downhill very fast.

At this point, the doctors are very unsure on what the next steps are in her treatment. They are currently testing her for an autoimmune disease known as Pemphigus Vulgaris which has a very limited and complicated treatment plan. She is trying to get transferred to Mayo Clinic in March.

Lauren has been out of work for over six months and the medical bills are adding up as she is in the hospital indefinitely until doctors can figure out what is going on and properly treat it. Her family has expressed the horrific amount of medical debt that she is currently in.

Her family and I ask that if you can please spare any amount to help her with these bills, it can take one more stress off of her. If you are able to donate, just note that tipping the platform is optional. A few people have been overlooking that feature at the time of donation. Thank you so much again for taking the time to read her story and thank you for any contribution that you can make.