Support Georgia's Recovery from Cerebral Malaria
Donation protected
Six weeks ago, Georgia was in Uganda working with farmers on climate change adaptation and food security and in South Sudanese refugee camps to improve nutrition and deter future deforestation–work she has been dedicated to from its inception for the past 5 years. During her time in Uganda being of service and doing the work she loves, she contracted cerebral malaria, which is a very rare and deadly form of malaria, and one of the deadliest diseases in the world. Over the last three weeks, our girl has fought for her life to survive this disease, overcome unbelievable odds, and is now on the path to recovery.
And while she survived, she still is facing challenges - although seeing her with that infectious smile of hers and her beaming eyes, you may not realize it. Here’s the deal: while in her coma in ICU, her doctors redirected blood flow away from her legs and feet in attempts to keep her brain, heart, and internal organs from experiencing long-term damage and further failure (she already had experienced lung and kidney failure). During this process, her toes lost circulation and post-coma her prognosis was that all 10 would need to be amputated. Reducing her risk of amputation, and the extent of amputation (whole toe/all toes vs. tips/a couple toes), will drastically impact the recovery time and longterm effect this experience will have on Georgia. Additionally, she has significant nerve damage in her right arm that has rendered her arm non-functioning; impacting her ability to normal, everyday things with ease.
And while she survived, she still is facing challenges - although seeing her with that infectious smile of hers and her beaming eyes, you may not realize it. Here’s the deal: while in her coma in ICU, her doctors redirected blood flow away from her legs and feet in attempts to keep her brain, heart, and internal organs from experiencing long-term damage and further failure (she already had experienced lung and kidney failure). During this process, her toes lost circulation and post-coma her prognosis was that all 10 would need to be amputated. Reducing her risk of amputation, and the extent of amputation (whole toe/all toes vs. tips/a couple toes), will drastically impact the recovery time and longterm effect this experience will have on Georgia. Additionally, she has significant nerve damage in her right arm that has rendered her arm non-functioning; impacting her ability to normal, everyday things with ease.
*Georgia and her mom shortly after she awoke from her coma. (The black lip is from her ventilator during her coma. It will heal on its own.)
This GoFundMe is asking to raise $30,000.
This GoFundMe is asking to raise $30,000.
The first $7,000 raised will go directly to cover a BEMER Mat, which is a German technology that utilizes electromagnetic pulsing to stimulate microcirculation, and that has been proven through clinical studies to reduce the severity of amputations, or the need for them altogether. Georgia’s mom paid for this technology out of pocket (her toes don’t have time to wait), and Georgia is currently using it as treatment and has already seen tangible improvement.
**UPDATE: The BEMER mat has been paid for! Because y'all have generously paid for it, Georgia will be able to donate it once she's made her full recovery. Once her recovery is complete, she will identify an organization or rehab center that works will scheduled amputee populations, so that they will have access to the best outcomes, just as she has. Together we will help save many toes, feet and legs of people we will never know, but that we will forever be tied to, through the silent undercurrent that the power of Togetherness creates.**
The next $5,000 will go to support the long-term recovery of our sweet Georgia. Holistic treatments that won’t be covered by insurance, from long-term physical therapy to acupuncture and visiting naturopaths, chiropractors and herbalists, and supplements that will support her vitality over the course of the next year as her organs and internal functioning continue to heal.
The next $9,000 will go towards her Medivac (emergency evacuation) that helped save her life, transporting her via jet from Costa Rica to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, TN, while she was in her coma. There were a lot of moments while she was in her most critical state that, if hadn't occurred, her outcome may have been different, and would have resulted in her not being with us today. This medivac is one of those. The Medivac cost $33,255. Luckily, Georgia had travel insurance that includes medical evacuation. She and her family are waiting to hear from the insurance company how much they will cover: we are estimating they will cover between $15,000 to $25,000. (In the rush to get her to Vanderbilt, her family did not use the emergency evacuation that was 'in network'). $9,000 will cover the out of pocket IF insurance pays the maximum amount. With that said, if we raise more it is welcome, as we will not know how much they will cover for some time.
The next $7,000 will go towards other out of pocket expenses that Georgia has, and will continue to incur. This includes medical-related expenses and alternative treatments. For example, she is researching alternative treatments for her toes, including the hyperbaric chamber, which may or may not be covered by insurance. Another treatment she is looking into is maggot debridement therapy, which would not be covered by insurance, and would also necessitate travel, as no hospital in Nashville conducts this treatment. She will also eventually go to therapy to help her process this life-altering event. This will additionally help with further, ongoing holistic treatments like massage, physical therapy, acupuncture, etc., that is mentioned above. Additionally, after her amputations, she will likely need prosthetic inserts for her shoes, so she can easily run, summit mountains, and do other things. Obviously, there are other costs associated with her hospitalization and recovery that she and her family are taking on, and much will be revealed as insurance confirms what will be covered and what will not. Obviously, Georgia is not working at this time, and won't be for some time. Georgia wants to take as much ownership of these expenses as she can, and not put the financial burden on her family.
The final $2,000 will go towards Georgia's living expenses as she continues to recover. Georgia will not be working for several months, and will likely do several months of her recovery in Asheville, NC. The price of healthy food and other living expenses quickly adds up. This is, of course, just a starting point for her regular living expenses.
Given the severity of her case, this still is a modest amount: Georgia and her family have walked through the fire with an unmatchable compassion and grace, and anything we can do to lessen the burden of this experience we want to do.
We all know that she would do the same for us.
We know that many of you want to know the entire story of how all of this came to be. Below is Georgia’s story, written from our perspective: the perspective of her best and longest friend, Caroline, and her sweetheart, Danny. Georgia was, of course, our editor as we put it together. We are sure she will tell her story–from her own perspective– to you all in the coming weeks or months, as she continues to climb the mountain of this life-altering experience.
Pt. 1: Written by Danny, Georgia’s sweetheart
It was only five weeks ago that Georgia was in Uganda, living out her life’s purpose of service and empowerment. She was working on her five years long project of creating sustainable economies and ecosystems. Her work includes job creation, education, agroforestry, cultural empowerment, and healing. And that list doesn’t come close to what the creation of those systems actually entails. She was doing what she has always done: Help People. Then, a mosquito carrying a rare form of malaria that affects the brain bit her. During the disease’s incubation period she traveled back home to Peru and then to Costa Rica to visit Danny for vacation.
*Georgia with some of the Ugandan women she works with.
After a few days of warm beaches and cool ocean water in Costa Rica, Georgia started to get sore muscles throughout her body. Overnight, her muscle pain became worse, and at early dawn Danny started noticing signs of confusion. Within 15 minutes of showing signs of confusion, she had trouble walking, which is the moment she was taken to the local clinic in town. By the time Georgia got to the clinic (10 minute drive), she was having trouble communicating.
Danny and his friend’s wife drove Georgia to the closest clinic for blood testing and evaluation, as Danny knew Georgia was at risk of contracting Malaria while in Uganda. By the time they got to the clinic, Georgia was still conscious, but non-responsive, and the seriousness of the illness became clear. After the blood results came in positive for malaria, the doctor recommended transfer to the closest hospital that had antimalarial medication. After two ambulances and a speed-boat ambulance, Georgia got to the hospital, where they administered medication and kept track of her vitals. At this point she was drifting in and out of consciousness and most of the doctors were concerned about brain injury, since they have never seen Cerebral Malaria, only the common flu-like symptom malaria, which is still in some parts of Costa Rica.
The next day, the doctors informed Danny that Georgia was in critical condition and her likelihood of survival wasn’t looking good. Her kidneys were failing, her blood pressure and count was extremely low, and she wasn’t responding well to the antimalarial medication, which we found out later was due to it being orally administered vs. intravenous.
In critical and unstable condition, Georgia was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in San Jose, Costa Rica, where she started receiving intravenous malarial medication, blood pressure medication, assisted breathing, dialysis, and was put into a medically induced coma. Though Georgia was still in critical condition at this point, she was stable and stopped getting worse. Even though Georgia was finally in stable condition, the doctors weren’t confident of her survival, especially since over 80% of people who die from cerebral malaria die within the first 48 hours. Also, being properly treated for cerebral malaria doesn’t mean survival and 20% of adults who are properly treated don’t survive (100% mortality rate if you aren’t treated).
Georgia survived that night. And though she was in a medically induced coma, her will power and inner strength pushed her through the most challenging and hardest hours. The next morning, she was still in very delicate condition and her prognosis for survival went from “not good” to “it could go either way.” Later that night her mother arrived and organized medical emergency evacuation via jet to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville the next day. With the presence and love from her mother and her continued strength, Georgia survived the night again.
The next day, Georgia was in the same condition and hadn’t made major improvements, but it was the third day and she hadn’t gotten worse. This gave the doctors the first sign of optimism of her survival. With her more stable and showing small improvements, Georgia and her mother were on their way to the U.S. that evening on a medical emergency jet, which arrived in Nashville that night where a specialized team of doctors in seven different fields were waiting to receive her.
After arriving in Nashville, Georgia went directly on dialysis to help with her low functioning kidneys and had a whole myriad of tests, including EEG scans, CT scans, an MRI, x-rays, and everything in between. When the blood tests came back, the doctors were able to see that the antimalarial medication was working well and the malaria was out of her system, which was one of the first signs that Georgia had a good chance of survival. In addition, all of her scans came back negative (no damage) and blood was beginning to normalize on its own.
This was one of the most important moments for Georgia, as now the discussion moved from survival to recovery. For her family and loved ones, this was the moment the tears really came, as it was clear Georgia was winning the fight and she was going to pull through and survive.
Georgia’s initial recovery was focused on her most immediate concerns, being her kidneys. The biggest focus was to give her kidneys rest so they could have a chance at repairing themselves. Without repair, Georgia would either need to be near a dialysis machine for the rest of her life or receive a kidney transplant, both of which would give her a 10 to 20 year expected lifespan maximum. The other huge area of concern was Georgia’s mental status, since cerebral malaria often causes long-term impairments in speech, motor function, behavioral changes, blindness, and epilepsy.
But, when she woke up, a little over a week after being in a coma, those fears began to dissipate. While still a little confused for those first two days awake, and experiencing euphoria, it was clear that the majority of her cognitive function was in good shape: she knew who she was, was talking to doctors in English and in Spanish without a problem, and somehow internally knew what all had happened, although with no recollection of the actual events. After those first two days out of the coma, her full cognitive function was back, and she had already walked 10 steps, with the help of her incredible nurses. Every hour after she woke up, she was hitting milestones that her extensive team of doctors thought would take weeks to hit. Her positivity, inner lioness strength, and utter determination to get better left everyone in awe.
*Georgia today, three weeks post-coma, with a bright spirit, an untamable determination to recover beyond belief, and a new-found gratitude for the gift to be alive.
Pt. 2: Caroline, Georgia’s best and longest friend
*Caroline and Georgia in ICU, positive AF!
It was only two weeks ago that I was in the ICU with my best friend as she was waking up from a weeklong coma. She had already endured and survived the most life threatening moments of this full-body parasite take-over. When I saw her, she was smiling. Not only alive, but alert and already uplifting others. She was already helping people, again. She still had that special spark, sense of humor, and genuine kindness which had her nurses, aids, and doctors all laughing and eventually giving her the boot from the ICU for being “too spunky.” This was just four days after waking up from her coma, and her head doctors initially told her family she’d be in ICU for at least a month. They were really in for a positivity-paradigm shift having Georgia as an ICU patient.
I asked Georgia, now two weeks post coma and one-week post hospital, what she is feeling and what she has been focusing on. She said, “you know, I’m still just constantly in awe of the fact that I am ALIVE, and feel this overwhelming, all consuming gratitude for the miracle to be breathing, to be cognizant, and to be surrounded by so much love and support. Everything that I have and everything that I see, in my newly opened eyes feels like a miracle: from my lungs breathing themselves to the number of people around the world that care for me to the butterfly that eats his lunch from beautiful flowers: everything is miraculous. And you know, with the type of malaria that I had, and for the length of the coma, it’s pretty freakin amazing that I emerged with my brain in tact. This experience changes everything for me. But what happened is also a lot to process. Western medicine saved my life, but now I start a different journey of healing. My life got turned upside down, I literally woke up on a different continent than the one I live on. But I am resilient, and I will adapt and flow.”
At this point in the journey, Georgia is still facing some serious physical restrictions. Her right arm is non-functioning due to a blood clot from her arterial IV and other interventions. Her right hand just began to function normally so she can now use it, but anything that takes two arms, or lifting the right arm, she is unable to do on her own–from shampooing her own hair and putting it up to opening doors to everything else we use are arms for. However, she also has hit some incredible milestones: her last week in the hospital she began her own form of PT, full of bed yoga and walks around the unit. She now can walk (although somewhat like a penguin!) with ease, and without a cane I might add! Over this time her muscles have atrophied significantly and she has pretty much had to learn to do all basic movements again from walking, standing and balancing to personal hygiene and feeding herself. When I first arrived to the ICU to visit her, she had just begun to eat on her own without the help of her brother, mom, or nurses.
But the biggest hurdle Georgia faces is that while she was in her coma, the focus was completely on keeping blood flow to her brain, heart and other major organs to curb the risk of organ failure and keep her alive. In the process, her toes took one for the team. More like, they took 10 for the team. She has gangrene in all ten toes, and was given the prognosis that she would need them all to be amputated. But today we have a new prognosis which is… #SAVETHENUBS.
Her vascular team has been waiting to see what nerves in her feet “wake up” and if there is improvement with the gangrene. Georgia knows that some amputations, hopefully partial, are inevitable, and she seriously has the best attitude about it that I could imagine. For her, losing a few toes in exchange for her active mind, beating heart and a whole life to live seems like a good trade off. She’s able to look at it with a perspective of gratitude, she’s able to joke about it (the hashtag was her idea), while also still mourning the fact that her rehab is going to be long, her beloved yoga practice may change, and she probably won’t ever be able to paint her toenails again.
The good news is that we immediately got her an amazing medical technology that uses electromagnetic pulsations to improve microcirculation. Clinical studies have shown a decrease in amputations among scheduled amputee patients who have used this technology. It is called a BEMER Mat. After only 9 days of use, she already has pink skin returning to some of her toes, which means less amputation! The down side is that the mat costs just under 7K. Georgia’s toes couldn’t wait, so her mom paid for the mat out of pocket, and she definitely won’t be getting reimbursed from insurance. That’s why we are calling on Georgia’s incredible and interconnected web of loved ones and friends to fundraise this money.
This medical technology is literally shaping her potential outcomes. Just like the continued therapeutic, holistic care that she needs after surviving cerebral malaria will shape her life. That’s why we are asking for her beautiful community who generously offered their prayers and love to her during the survival stages to help fund her recovery in a tangible way.
Now, it wouldn’t be true to Georgia’s form if the money just stopped there. After her time with the BEMER mat, her vision is to donate the mat to an organization that serves amputee scheduled populations and to save as many feet and toes as possible. Even in her moment of need, she continues to think of others, which to me, is so indicative of who she is, and who she always has been and who I know she will continue to be. #SAVETHENUBS
Georgia is a fighter and a survivor, but it will be difficult for her to reach all her financial obligations that this life-changing event has created. When she was in her most critical state, it was obvious how many people love her and want to support her. Thank you to everyone who sent their love, prayers, messages, songs, encouragement and positivity.
Together we can TOE-tally save her toes AND raise enough money to support her with holistic care to total health. Let’s band together to give back to this amazing person who has given so much to us all, and to so many all over the world through her life-changing work.
*Georgia climbing mountains in her beloved home in Peru.
*Georgia and Danny, in Peru.
*Georgia's toes!
**UPDATE: The BEMER mat has been paid for! Because y'all have generously paid for it, Georgia will be able to donate it once she's made her full recovery. Once her recovery is complete, she will identify an organization or rehab center that works will scheduled amputee populations, so that they will have access to the best outcomes, just as she has. Together we will help save many toes, feet and legs of people we will never know, but that we will forever be tied to, through the silent undercurrent that the power of Togetherness creates.**
The next $5,000 will go to support the long-term recovery of our sweet Georgia. Holistic treatments that won’t be covered by insurance, from long-term physical therapy to acupuncture and visiting naturopaths, chiropractors and herbalists, and supplements that will support her vitality over the course of the next year as her organs and internal functioning continue to heal.
The next $9,000 will go towards her Medivac (emergency evacuation) that helped save her life, transporting her via jet from Costa Rica to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, TN, while she was in her coma. There were a lot of moments while she was in her most critical state that, if hadn't occurred, her outcome may have been different, and would have resulted in her not being with us today. This medivac is one of those. The Medivac cost $33,255. Luckily, Georgia had travel insurance that includes medical evacuation. She and her family are waiting to hear from the insurance company how much they will cover: we are estimating they will cover between $15,000 to $25,000. (In the rush to get her to Vanderbilt, her family did not use the emergency evacuation that was 'in network'). $9,000 will cover the out of pocket IF insurance pays the maximum amount. With that said, if we raise more it is welcome, as we will not know how much they will cover for some time.
The next $7,000 will go towards other out of pocket expenses that Georgia has, and will continue to incur. This includes medical-related expenses and alternative treatments. For example, she is researching alternative treatments for her toes, including the hyperbaric chamber, which may or may not be covered by insurance. Another treatment she is looking into is maggot debridement therapy, which would not be covered by insurance, and would also necessitate travel, as no hospital in Nashville conducts this treatment. She will also eventually go to therapy to help her process this life-altering event. This will additionally help with further, ongoing holistic treatments like massage, physical therapy, acupuncture, etc., that is mentioned above. Additionally, after her amputations, she will likely need prosthetic inserts for her shoes, so she can easily run, summit mountains, and do other things. Obviously, there are other costs associated with her hospitalization and recovery that she and her family are taking on, and much will be revealed as insurance confirms what will be covered and what will not. Obviously, Georgia is not working at this time, and won't be for some time. Georgia wants to take as much ownership of these expenses as she can, and not put the financial burden on her family.
The final $2,000 will go towards Georgia's living expenses as she continues to recover. Georgia will not be working for several months, and will likely do several months of her recovery in Asheville, NC. The price of healthy food and other living expenses quickly adds up. This is, of course, just a starting point for her regular living expenses.
Given the severity of her case, this still is a modest amount: Georgia and her family have walked through the fire with an unmatchable compassion and grace, and anything we can do to lessen the burden of this experience we want to do.
We all know that she would do the same for us.
We know that many of you want to know the entire story of how all of this came to be. Below is Georgia’s story, written from our perspective: the perspective of her best and longest friend, Caroline, and her sweetheart, Danny. Georgia was, of course, our editor as we put it together. We are sure she will tell her story–from her own perspective– to you all in the coming weeks or months, as she continues to climb the mountain of this life-altering experience.
Pt. 1: Written by Danny, Georgia’s sweetheart
It was only five weeks ago that Georgia was in Uganda, living out her life’s purpose of service and empowerment. She was working on her five years long project of creating sustainable economies and ecosystems. Her work includes job creation, education, agroforestry, cultural empowerment, and healing. And that list doesn’t come close to what the creation of those systems actually entails. She was doing what she has always done: Help People. Then, a mosquito carrying a rare form of malaria that affects the brain bit her. During the disease’s incubation period she traveled back home to Peru and then to Costa Rica to visit Danny for vacation.
*Georgia with some of the Ugandan women she works with.After a few days of warm beaches and cool ocean water in Costa Rica, Georgia started to get sore muscles throughout her body. Overnight, her muscle pain became worse, and at early dawn Danny started noticing signs of confusion. Within 15 minutes of showing signs of confusion, she had trouble walking, which is the moment she was taken to the local clinic in town. By the time Georgia got to the clinic (10 minute drive), she was having trouble communicating.
Danny and his friend’s wife drove Georgia to the closest clinic for blood testing and evaluation, as Danny knew Georgia was at risk of contracting Malaria while in Uganda. By the time they got to the clinic, Georgia was still conscious, but non-responsive, and the seriousness of the illness became clear. After the blood results came in positive for malaria, the doctor recommended transfer to the closest hospital that had antimalarial medication. After two ambulances and a speed-boat ambulance, Georgia got to the hospital, where they administered medication and kept track of her vitals. At this point she was drifting in and out of consciousness and most of the doctors were concerned about brain injury, since they have never seen Cerebral Malaria, only the common flu-like symptom malaria, which is still in some parts of Costa Rica.
The next day, the doctors informed Danny that Georgia was in critical condition and her likelihood of survival wasn’t looking good. Her kidneys were failing, her blood pressure and count was extremely low, and she wasn’t responding well to the antimalarial medication, which we found out later was due to it being orally administered vs. intravenous.
In critical and unstable condition, Georgia was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in San Jose, Costa Rica, where she started receiving intravenous malarial medication, blood pressure medication, assisted breathing, dialysis, and was put into a medically induced coma. Though Georgia was still in critical condition at this point, she was stable and stopped getting worse. Even though Georgia was finally in stable condition, the doctors weren’t confident of her survival, especially since over 80% of people who die from cerebral malaria die within the first 48 hours. Also, being properly treated for cerebral malaria doesn’t mean survival and 20% of adults who are properly treated don’t survive (100% mortality rate if you aren’t treated).
Georgia survived that night. And though she was in a medically induced coma, her will power and inner strength pushed her through the most challenging and hardest hours. The next morning, she was still in very delicate condition and her prognosis for survival went from “not good” to “it could go either way.” Later that night her mother arrived and organized medical emergency evacuation via jet to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville the next day. With the presence and love from her mother and her continued strength, Georgia survived the night again.
The next day, Georgia was in the same condition and hadn’t made major improvements, but it was the third day and she hadn’t gotten worse. This gave the doctors the first sign of optimism of her survival. With her more stable and showing small improvements, Georgia and her mother were on their way to the U.S. that evening on a medical emergency jet, which arrived in Nashville that night where a specialized team of doctors in seven different fields were waiting to receive her.
After arriving in Nashville, Georgia went directly on dialysis to help with her low functioning kidneys and had a whole myriad of tests, including EEG scans, CT scans, an MRI, x-rays, and everything in between. When the blood tests came back, the doctors were able to see that the antimalarial medication was working well and the malaria was out of her system, which was one of the first signs that Georgia had a good chance of survival. In addition, all of her scans came back negative (no damage) and blood was beginning to normalize on its own.
This was one of the most important moments for Georgia, as now the discussion moved from survival to recovery. For her family and loved ones, this was the moment the tears really came, as it was clear Georgia was winning the fight and she was going to pull through and survive.
Georgia’s initial recovery was focused on her most immediate concerns, being her kidneys. The biggest focus was to give her kidneys rest so they could have a chance at repairing themselves. Without repair, Georgia would either need to be near a dialysis machine for the rest of her life or receive a kidney transplant, both of which would give her a 10 to 20 year expected lifespan maximum. The other huge area of concern was Georgia’s mental status, since cerebral malaria often causes long-term impairments in speech, motor function, behavioral changes, blindness, and epilepsy.
But, when she woke up, a little over a week after being in a coma, those fears began to dissipate. While still a little confused for those first two days awake, and experiencing euphoria, it was clear that the majority of her cognitive function was in good shape: she knew who she was, was talking to doctors in English and in Spanish without a problem, and somehow internally knew what all had happened, although with no recollection of the actual events. After those first two days out of the coma, her full cognitive function was back, and she had already walked 10 steps, with the help of her incredible nurses. Every hour after she woke up, she was hitting milestones that her extensive team of doctors thought would take weeks to hit. Her positivity, inner lioness strength, and utter determination to get better left everyone in awe.
*Georgia today, three weeks post-coma, with a bright spirit, an untamable determination to recover beyond belief, and a new-found gratitude for the gift to be alive. Pt. 2: Caroline, Georgia’s best and longest friend
*Caroline and Georgia in ICU, positive AF! It was only two weeks ago that I was in the ICU with my best friend as she was waking up from a weeklong coma. She had already endured and survived the most life threatening moments of this full-body parasite take-over. When I saw her, she was smiling. Not only alive, but alert and already uplifting others. She was already helping people, again. She still had that special spark, sense of humor, and genuine kindness which had her nurses, aids, and doctors all laughing and eventually giving her the boot from the ICU for being “too spunky.” This was just four days after waking up from her coma, and her head doctors initially told her family she’d be in ICU for at least a month. They were really in for a positivity-paradigm shift having Georgia as an ICU patient.
I asked Georgia, now two weeks post coma and one-week post hospital, what she is feeling and what she has been focusing on. She said, “you know, I’m still just constantly in awe of the fact that I am ALIVE, and feel this overwhelming, all consuming gratitude for the miracle to be breathing, to be cognizant, and to be surrounded by so much love and support. Everything that I have and everything that I see, in my newly opened eyes feels like a miracle: from my lungs breathing themselves to the number of people around the world that care for me to the butterfly that eats his lunch from beautiful flowers: everything is miraculous. And you know, with the type of malaria that I had, and for the length of the coma, it’s pretty freakin amazing that I emerged with my brain in tact. This experience changes everything for me. But what happened is also a lot to process. Western medicine saved my life, but now I start a different journey of healing. My life got turned upside down, I literally woke up on a different continent than the one I live on. But I am resilient, and I will adapt and flow.”
At this point in the journey, Georgia is still facing some serious physical restrictions. Her right arm is non-functioning due to a blood clot from her arterial IV and other interventions. Her right hand just began to function normally so she can now use it, but anything that takes two arms, or lifting the right arm, she is unable to do on her own–from shampooing her own hair and putting it up to opening doors to everything else we use are arms for. However, she also has hit some incredible milestones: her last week in the hospital she began her own form of PT, full of bed yoga and walks around the unit. She now can walk (although somewhat like a penguin!) with ease, and without a cane I might add! Over this time her muscles have atrophied significantly and she has pretty much had to learn to do all basic movements again from walking, standing and balancing to personal hygiene and feeding herself. When I first arrived to the ICU to visit her, she had just begun to eat on her own without the help of her brother, mom, or nurses.
But the biggest hurdle Georgia faces is that while she was in her coma, the focus was completely on keeping blood flow to her brain, heart and other major organs to curb the risk of organ failure and keep her alive. In the process, her toes took one for the team. More like, they took 10 for the team. She has gangrene in all ten toes, and was given the prognosis that she would need them all to be amputated. But today we have a new prognosis which is… #SAVETHENUBS.
Her vascular team has been waiting to see what nerves in her feet “wake up” and if there is improvement with the gangrene. Georgia knows that some amputations, hopefully partial, are inevitable, and she seriously has the best attitude about it that I could imagine. For her, losing a few toes in exchange for her active mind, beating heart and a whole life to live seems like a good trade off. She’s able to look at it with a perspective of gratitude, she’s able to joke about it (the hashtag was her idea), while also still mourning the fact that her rehab is going to be long, her beloved yoga practice may change, and she probably won’t ever be able to paint her toenails again.
The good news is that we immediately got her an amazing medical technology that uses electromagnetic pulsations to improve microcirculation. Clinical studies have shown a decrease in amputations among scheduled amputee patients who have used this technology. It is called a BEMER Mat. After only 9 days of use, she already has pink skin returning to some of her toes, which means less amputation! The down side is that the mat costs just under 7K. Georgia’s toes couldn’t wait, so her mom paid for the mat out of pocket, and she definitely won’t be getting reimbursed from insurance. That’s why we are calling on Georgia’s incredible and interconnected web of loved ones and friends to fundraise this money.
This medical technology is literally shaping her potential outcomes. Just like the continued therapeutic, holistic care that she needs after surviving cerebral malaria will shape her life. That’s why we are asking for her beautiful community who generously offered their prayers and love to her during the survival stages to help fund her recovery in a tangible way.
Now, it wouldn’t be true to Georgia’s form if the money just stopped there. After her time with the BEMER mat, her vision is to donate the mat to an organization that serves amputee scheduled populations and to save as many feet and toes as possible. Even in her moment of need, she continues to think of others, which to me, is so indicative of who she is, and who she always has been and who I know she will continue to be. #SAVETHENUBS
Georgia is a fighter and a survivor, but it will be difficult for her to reach all her financial obligations that this life-changing event has created. When she was in her most critical state, it was obvious how many people love her and want to support her. Thank you to everyone who sent their love, prayers, messages, songs, encouragement and positivity.
Together we can TOE-tally save her toes AND raise enough money to support her with holistic care to total health. Let’s band together to give back to this amazing person who has given so much to us all, and to so many all over the world through her life-changing work.
*Georgia climbing mountains in her beloved home in Peru. *Georgia and Danny, in Peru.*Georgia's toes!
Organizer
Georgia Beasley
Organizer
Nashville, TN
