Fighting HM: PAWS Up For Megan!
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Fighting Hemiplegic Migraines: PAWS Up for Megan
Hello to everyone reading and welcome to my very first blog post of how I am living with Hemiplegic Migraines and how you, my readers, could possibly help me! To kick it off, I want to give a little background information about myself...
My name is Megan Chasity Lewis. I am a 19 year old girl, free-spirited, caring, and loves her family and friends. I was in love and still am with the game of Soccer. I love to travel, hike, and see the world from a different perspective. I love to be adventurous, help people, take funny pictures, and be myself...
However, Hemiplegic Migraines has taken these things away from me and I am raising money to allow myself to be paired up with a Service K-9 so I can fight back Hemiplegic Migraines.
When I was fifteen years old, I was the typical teenager who worried about the next upcoming soccer game, my worries were small and few between. August of 2012 my life changed forever when I laced my cleats up for practice, unknown to what would occur later that evening. After multiple Emergency Room visits when the right side of my body would go into a paralytic state, the doctors believed what was occurring to me was far beyond what they were willing to handle. I was treated inpatient and felt as though I had been through every test there could be- blood work, CT Scans, MRI, MRA, Spinal Tap, EKG, EEG, etc. Something was unsettling with the results from the tests however, so from one children’s hospital after a week stay, I was sent to another…
The first time I heard the words “Hemiplegic Migraines”, I kind of thought to myself “you’re kidding me? A headache?” but the doctors kept reassuring me as though it would be okay, as though they knew the struggles I would endure.
Coming home from the hospital as a teenager who was “sick” or “ill” sometimes, isn’t that easy. People look at you unsettling, afraid they will break you or hurt you with their words. What they really don’t understand is that, after multiple hospital stays and all the medical lingo talk – you need that time to talk to someone other than your night time nurse or mother.
After two years of being in school and out through my Junior and Senior years of High School, I looked forward to the years that were to follow. I did not dread leaving and going to another city to start my life somewhere else. For me college, was a fresh blank page and I was ready to write the perfect story where only the people I talked to on a day to day basis knew of my Invisible Disability...
I am now a sophomore attending college trying to earn my way towards a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing. The perfect story that I once hoped and wished for prior to entering college does not exist with Hemiplegic Migraines. I have currently for the past 5 month been inpatient 3 times: twice in Chicago, Illinois and once at UK. I have had multiple ER visits due to jaw locking, paralysis of the right side, and excruciating headache pain. I receive daily infusions outpatient when I am not inpatient to try and break the migraine cycle itself, however I continuously have a migraine on a pain scale of a 6. Hemiplegic Migraines are debilitating as they mimic a stroke and they have hindered my life also, controlling those around me as well.
So what is this blog post for anyways? I have told you how bad Hemiplegic Migraines are so why are we putting our “PAWS” up? Because we are fighting back by trying to bring a Service K-9 into my life to not only help alert to my Hemiplegic Migraine episodes but also to help during the symptoms by retrieving objects, medicine bottles, phones, dialing 9-1-1, and many more skills. With having a K-9 that is accessible in helping me navigate through my life and struggles of a person battling Hemiplegic Migraines, I would be able to gain some control and independency back into my own life. Service K-9 dogs are not covered by insurance companies therefore, me and my family are fundraising in hopes we can achieve our goal of placing a K-9 into my life and help fight this life-long chronic invisible disease-Hemiplegic Migraines!
Any donation and/or prayers would be greatly appreciated!
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; Proverbs 3:5
Hemiplegic Migraines: PAWS Up for Megan!
Hello to everyone reading and welcome to my very first blog post of how I am living with Hemiplegic Migraines and how you, my readers, could possibly help me! To kick it off, I want to give a little background information about myself...
My name is Megan Chasity Lewis. I am a 19 year old girl, free-spirited, caring, and loves her family and friends. I was in love and still am with the game of Soccer. I love to travel, hike, and see the world from a different perspective. I love to be adventurous, help people, take funny pictures, and be myself...
However, Hemiplegic Migraines has taken these things away from me and I am raising money to allow myself to be paired up with a Service K-9 so I can fight back Hemiplegic Migraines.
When I was fifteen years old, I was the typical teenager who worried about the next upcoming soccer game, my worries were small and few between. August of 2012 my life changed forever when I laced my cleats up for practice, unknown to what would occur later that evening. After multiple Emergency Room visits when the right side of my body would go into a paralytic state, the doctors believed what was occurring to me was far beyond what they were willing to handle. I was treated inpatient and felt as though I had been through every test there could be- blood work, CT Scans, MRI, MRA, Spinal Tap, EKG, EEG, etc. Something was unsettling with the results from the tests however, so from one children’s hospital after a week stay, I was sent to another…
The first time I heard the words “Hemiplegic Migraines”, I kind of thought to myself “you’re kidding me? A headache?” but the doctors kept reassuring me as though it would be okay, as though they knew the struggles I would endure.
Coming home from the hospital as a teenager who was “sick” or “ill” sometimes, isn’t that easy. People look at you unsettling, afraid they will break you or hurt you with their words. What they really don’t understand is that, after multiple hospital stays and all the medical lingo talk – you need that time to talk to someone other than your night time nurse or mother.
After two years of being in school and out through my Junior and Senior years of High School, I looked forward to the years that were to follow. I did not dread leaving and going to another city to start my life somewhere else. For me college, was a fresh blank page and I was ready to write the perfect story where only the people I talked to on a day to day basis knew of my Invisible Disability...
I am now a sophomore attending college trying to earn my way towards a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing. The perfect story that I once hoped and wished for prior to entering college does not exist with Hemiplegic Migraines. I have currently for the past 5 month been inpatient 3 times: twice in Chicago, Illinois and once at UK. I have had multiple ER visits due to jaw locking, paralysis of the right side, and excruciating headache pain. I receive daily infusions outpatient when I am not inpatient to try and break the migraine cycle itself, however I continuously have a migraine on a pain scale of a 6. Hemiplegic Migraines are debilitating as they mimic a stroke and they have hindered my life also, controlling those around me as well.
So what is this blog post for anyways? I have told you how bad Hemiplegic Migraines are so why are we putting our “PAWS” up? Because we are fighting back by trying to bring a Service K-9 into my life to not only help alert to my Hemiplegic Migraine episodes but also to help during the symptoms by retrieving objects, medicine bottles, phones, dialing 9-1-1, and many more skills. With having a K-9 that is accessible in helping me navigate through my life and struggles of a person battling Hemiplegic Migraines, I would be able to gain some control and independency back into my own life. Service K-9 dogs are not covered by insurance companies therefore, me and my family are fundraising in hopes we can achieve our goal of placing a K-9 into my life and help fight this life-long chronic invisible disease-Hemiplegic Migraines!
Any donation and/or prayers would be greatly appreciated!
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; Proverbs 3:5
Hemiplegic Migraines: PAWS Up for Megan!
Organizer
Megan Lewis
Organizer
Richmond, KY