My name is Rachel, but this is not my story, I want to share my little sister Lauren's story, in hopes that there are people out there who may want to help.

My sister has been battling an infection called Chronic Clostridium Difficile for the past three years, and this Gofundme is to try to alleviate some of the frustration associated with mounting medical bills, a lack of funds to help her see a specialist and a dietitian to help get her back on the road to recovery.

Lauren was diagnosed with Lymes disease as a young child, she was treated with round after round of powerful antibiotics in order to get her body healthy again, she was lucky because it was caught fairly early and did not have a huge affect on her quality of life after her body, with the help of modern medicine, fought the disease very effectively. However as a young child and into her adolescent years it has always been clear that her immune system was compromised by this experience. Lauren has been through a lot if hardship in her life as we lost our father to a brain aneurism in 2002, he was only 47 and it has been hard for our family in countless ways, including financially.

In late 2012 Lauren had her wisdom teeth removed, a routine procedure, for someone with a normal immune response it would have been no problem to heal, but Lauren developed a painful infection, she was again treated with antibiotics, the infection in her tooth went away but Lauren quickly started experiencing other symptoms. She was sick every morning, at first the symptoms seemed like some sort of flu but the progressively got worse and worse. The antibiotics she was treated with killed off the good bacteria in her colon and created an opportunity for this infection (Clostridium Difficile) to grow there instead of the natural healthy flora. She was so sick that she sometimes could not eat and started having an extremely hard time getting through the day as a hairdresser without bouts of sickness causing her extreme pain and work becoming more and more impossible. She was seeing a doctor and they had a very hard time diagnosing her illness, mostly because ‎Clostridium Difficile is usually found in much older patients and not young, seemingly healthy patients. When they finally did diagnose her, almost a year into this illness, she had Chronic Clostridium Difficile. It is a frightening diagnosis because this infection has a high mortality rate and in severe cases requires a Colectomy. It was affecting her ability to hold a job as well as her quality of life, so much so that she was barely able to go about her regular routine. 

Lauren has been treated with several different antibiotics she has had quite a few invasive procedures, and at this point she is being treated with pulsing rounds of very expensive antibiotics called Vancamycin for the next six months, they are not covered by her insurance, she is not yet back to work, but instead she cuts and colors hair for money but this is not enough to get by, let alone cover medical expenses.

Before this infection was diagnosed Lauren and her (now) fiancé got engaged and what was supposed to be one of the happiest experiences of her life quickly faded into another overwhelming part of life that she could barely participate in. She started planning their wedding but quickly realized that she could not enjoy the planning and therefore would be forced to wait until she is healthy to proceed with the wedding.

Lauren has had to put her whole life on hold because of this sickness and worse of all she is frightened that she may never heal. She can get better, as many people who suffer from this super bug do eventually fight it off but the stress of work and poverty are making it hard for her to focus on healing and treatment. I want her to have the ability to focus on what is truly important and by donating to her cause you are helping her to afford treatment and focus on healing.