Lauren’s journey started back in September of 2006. She found herself in a bathroom thinking she was coming down with the flu. As many people with chronic medical issues, she saw many, many doctors and was misdiagnosed again and again. As time went on she continued to get more and more sick going from a strong, athletic rock climber, weighing 130 lbs down to 90 lbs. Her mother was able to find a Holistic doctor who helped her gain weight through diet and supplements, however, she still had no answer of why she had been so sick. 

In 2012 Lauren became extremely sick with severe stomach pains, extreme fatigue that set in the moment she woke up until she went to bed, and filling the toilet bowl with blood about 15 times a day.  

In December of 2012, she found a GI doctor that through tests diagnosed her with Ulcerative Colitis. She tried several unsuccesful medication therapies, and remained in lots of pain and very fatigued along with the side effects of the medication. 

This past year Lauren after much research, reached out to the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio for help.  It was determined that her best interest was to have a surgery to remove her rectum and colon and be given a temporary ostomy bag. With plans to later reverse the surgery creating a "J -pouch" and reconnecting--removing the ostomy.

After numerous post-operative complications, from blowing veins, leaking spinal fluid into her body from the epideral and needing blood transfusions she returned back to Texas. Once home, Lauren became overly dehydrated and had to have port put in to give herself fluids around the clock. She then began to have complications with her ostomy bag and was forced to go back to Cleveland to have a faster reversal.

After returning home from this surgery, Lauren once again became very ill.  Back in the ER she found out she had developed staph in her blood stream due to the port. They removed the port and put her on an antibiotic, placing a picc line for meds. A few weeks after getting home her arm became purple and swollen and achey. Back at the hospital, she found out she had a large blood clot developed from the picc line. After a two week hospital stay, bleeding out from being on blood thinners with UC and 5 blown veins, Lauren is home. She has had to go on long term disability due to inability to work and will be losing her health insruance at the end of the month.

As you can imagine for a 27 year old girl, this has a been very hard on her, her friends and her family. She has accrued many, many medical bills and has many more to come. PLEASE, PLEASE help me in supporting her financial needs! This girl deserves more then I can ever imagine giving her, she is constantly STILL putting others first--so lets take this chance to help her out now!