Support Leyla's Journey to Recovery

Hi everyone! This is Jesse, Leyla’s fiance.

On Sunday September 22nd, Leyla had an episode which displayed symptoms of being a stroke. I called 9-1-1 and an ambulance was dispatched immediately. As most of you know, Leyla and I live off-grid near the Grand Canyon and average time for emergency services to arrive can take upwards of 30-minutes. Luckily, an ambulance was in our area and arrived within 10-minutes. After evaluating Leyla, EMS was very concerned that she was having a stroke and immediately transported her to the Valle Airport with a Guardian Angel Life Flight (helicopter) was dispatched to pick Leyla up, and transport her to Flagstaff Medical Trauma Center.

At the emergency department, Leyla was immediately seen to and began undergoing many different tests throughout the night. It was discovered through these tests and involvement of a neurologist Dr. Jeremy Payne, that Leyla has Functional Neurological Disorder (FND). Her recovery time is unknown at this time, and it is possible that this duration of her current state could last months or longer. While she is starting to experience some slight speech improvement, she still has a very long road ahead; and her motor skills, are severely diminished. It truly is not known why this has happened to Leyla, however stress does contribute to symptoms, and so it is important for Leyla to stay as stress free as possible.

Leyla’s current condition is that she is unable to speak audibly, she has difficulty walking and has to learn to use a walker to help her stability. She has very blurry vision, dizziness, extreme headaches, muscle spasms and non-epileptic seizures.

Leyla is uninsured and the medical bills from the EMS (US$2000), Life Flight (US$40,000), and hospital bills are already astronomical. On top of this, Leyla needs speech therapy, occupational and physiotherapy as well will need to be followed by a neurologist; none of which we can even possibly conceive of being able to afford. She would greatly benefit from an inpatient rehabilitation center, where she can have round the clock assistance with intensive therapy, geared specifically for neurological disorders.

In addition, as I mentioned earlier, we live off-grid and will need to build a ramp up to the house, and a walkway to the bathroom which will need to have railings to keep Leyla safe. With needing to care for Leyla 24/7 and Leyla unable to work at this time, we are now severely behind on our house payments and my car payment, which I use primarily for my work (DoorDash, Lyft, GrubHub, Roadie etc). We also haven’t had the ability to get the house insulated for the winter, or purchase a wood burning stove to give us heat. Since we are staying home in Arizona, we really need to get the house insulated and a good heat source, for the winter.

If you know Leyla at all, you know the light and love she gives to everyone she meets. Even in the emergency department, she was lighting up the nurses who attended her and the occupational and physiotherapists with her setting aside her own issues and fears, to brighten up their day. Leyla is a healer and always puts others ahead of herself to be a person’s greatest friend and ally. Leyla never complains about her own issues, and no doubt that has been a contribution to this situation. Right now, Leyla needs all the help she can get, and she really needs you to help.

If you would find it in your heart to donate and/or simply share this with hopes that we will be able to raise the funds to help pay for the medical bills already accrued, as well as the therapies she will need, including possible inpatient rehabilitation center, to get her back to her shining self. Otherwise, drop her a line, she would love to hear from you.

Thank you so much in advance.

Jesse