Support For Ana’s Medical Care & Help Our Family Rebuild

Many of you have followed Ana’s journey for years. Some of you have been here since the very beginning. You’ve celebrated her milestones, encouraged her through surgeries and treatments, and stood beside our family as we navigated life with a child who has complex and rare medical needs.

For a long time, I was able to handle the financial side of Ana’s care myself. Through remote work and income generated from social media advocacy I was able to cover the many expenses that come with Ana's care and then some. I was able to provide her with all her needs, plus a rich education, and even a lot of exploration and fun on a regular basis. Aaron joined the family in 2021 and our life was never better. We moved closer to her treatment center, Ana had a pool, everything was going well until 2023...Facebook started changing the way they paid content creators and we started seeing our income drop.

Then in February 2024, it all changed literally overnight.

For years, a large portion of our income came from Facebook livestream and video ad revenue. At the start of February, Facebook abruptly stopped calculating ad revenue on livestreams. One month that income existed. The next month it was simply gone.

Overnight, roughly 75% of our income disappeared.

We tried to pivot as quickly as we could. We encouraged our followers to move with us to YouTube so we could rebuild that income stream, but unfortunately most of our audience did not make that transition and we quickly spiraled into debt and an emergency situation.

At the same time, Ana’s medical care never slowed down. Ana will require the same level of care at least until her body stops growing and she just turned 10.

Ana requires specialized treatment that cannot be provided locally, which means our family must travel out of state for care for at least two months at a time every year. These trips are essential to maintain her mobility, independence, and overall health.

When the income loss happened, we did everything we could to adapt.

We cut expenses everywhere possible.

We downsized our lifestyle.

We reduced spending to the bare essentials.

We also made the difficult decision to move from Florida back to Michigan to lower our cost of living and try to stabilize our situation.

But we couldn't get out of our lease and the move took months to complete. While it helped in some ways, it also came with significant expenses at a time when we were already taking on extreme debt and under financial strain.

To cover the last year in Florida, the move, and maintain Ana’s medical care/health coverage during this transition, we've had to rely on credit cards to bridge the gap so, once we landed in Michigan and the dust settled, we were stuck with tens of thousands of credit card debt at a very high interest rate.

Now we are working hard to pay that debt down while continuing to manage the ongoing costs of Ana’s care.

Unfortunately, the financial pressure has only continued to increase...again in 2025 and now in 2026.

Ana required an unexpected surgery in December 2025 that has brought with it significant out-of-pocket costs. Over $12000 in bills so far and there are more still pending. We expect the bills to end up over $20k by the time they have all processed and been paid.

At the same time, in 2026 now, changes to insurance and medical pricing have raised our monthly health insurance premium to over $3,000 per month, before copays, coinsurance, treatments, surgeries, and travel are even added in.

Those rising medical costs are now cutting directly into our ability to pay down the debt that accumulated while we were trying to survive the sudden income loss. It feels like we're already in the grave and someone is now shoveling the dirt onto our heads. I feel like I've already been treading water financially for two years and I'm doing everything I can to stay afloat, but we're just one unexpected wave away from going under.

To top it all off, now we're getting word that University of Michigan (where all of Ana's care is through here in Michigan) may stop working with BCBS so ALL of her care would be out-of-network going forward, if that happens. I really pray that does not happen. We can't take any more.

Many people in our community continue to tell me to set up a GoFundMe, over and over.

I try to sell merch to earn the money because it feels better to earn it and I'm always looking for jobs I can do from home on top of everything else I'm already doing at home. I'm trying to find other sources of income but, people comment every day that they will help with the medical expenses if I just set up a GoFundMe account so, due to YET ANOTHER financial cog being thrown into the wheel for 2026...I decided to listen and set up an ongoing account for those who want to/are able to help.

The latest curveball? Aaron needs to leave us for several weeks to travel to California and help his stepfather through some serious decisions and make sure he has care... to help get him safely settled during this difficult time.

That means Ana and I will be here in Michigan while Aaron handles this urgent family responsibility, and our household income will take another hit from the income loss and added expenses, at a time when we are already trying to keep our heads above water.

This fundraiser is being created as a standing support fund to help us continue paying off the medical debt while covering Ana’s medical care and working to rebuild our financial stability. Our goal is to get back to a place where we can manage the level of debt on our own while also covering our monthly household expenses, without needing any help.

Funds raised will go (in the order of priority below) toward:

• Pay off outstanding medical bills from Ana's treatments and surgeries

(~$10000 left with a few bills still processing/pending)

• Cover current/ongoing copays and coinsurances for Ana's care

(~$3000 for current 2026 visits so far with another surgery to remove hardware expected sometime this year to add another ~$20k)

• Towards monthly insurance premiums to maintain Ana's coverage

(@$3000/mo - $27k for the remainder of 2026)

• Put some aside in savings for future medical travel for Ana

(For that hardware removal surgery and another 8 weeks in Florida for treatments/braces ~$6k minimum in travel/food/lodging, etc.)

NOT EXPECTING TO RAISE THIS MUCH AT ALL - BUT IN THE EVENT WE DO:

• IF EXTRA - funds will be put towards Ana's education/language lessons

• IF A LOT EXTRA - some will go towards paying down old cc debt to help get to a place of managing everything ourselves once again

I'm always very transparent about where any gifts like this go and I always apply funds received in ways that ultimately benefit Ana/Ana's future to continue taking the best care of her. So, I am making it clear ahead of time that if funds exceed our immediate medical expenses/debts and we're able to pay the monthly premium ahead for the rest of 2026 and put aside money to plan for her hardware removal surgery, then we will apply any additional support to Ana’s lessons so she can continue growing and thriving and any excess beyond that will be applied to pay down the credit card debt that accumulated during 2024 and our move.

Ana works incredibly hard every day. Despite the physical challenges she faces, she continues to pursue her education, her interests, and her independence with determination and resilience and our goal as parents has always been simple: to make sure Ana has access to the care and opportunities she needs to live the fullest life possible. To set her up for success. None of this is about giving ourselves a more luxurious life. It's all about continuing to give Ana the best life we can.

We are doing everything to get caught up and rebuild so that we don’t need to ask for help like this again. But we've been struggling to get on top of this for two years now and we just keep getting knocked back down. People keep asking to help so we're going to open this up, one time, ongoing, and put every dime towards making Ana's future good again with the support of the community that has stood beside Ana (and myself) for so many years. We deeply appreciate everyone and look forward to repaying you all someday by paying it forward, once again.

If you are able to donate, share this fundraiser, or simply keep our family in your thoughts, it means more than we can say.

Thank you for continuing to stand with Ana and our family.

With gratitude,

Team AMC Ana

Nana, Aaron, and Ana

Gemelli, Bánh mì, and Tofu