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Help Me Save My Wife's Life

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My name is Tim Evans, and my wife is sick. As it stands right now, she won't ever get better. This campaign isn't about getting help with medical bills. We don't need that. This is about helping my wife live a normal life and saving the lives of people like her. You probably wouldn't know it by looking at her now, but she suffers from a chronic, incurable disease called Achalasia. It's so rare that the spell check on the laptop I'm using  doesn't recognize the word. It's so rare that every time her and I are meeting with a new doctor, you can see the puzzled looks on their faces not knowing what she's talking about. 

Without going into too much detail, Achalasia basically means that her esophagus is paralyzed. This makes eating and drinking extremely difficult.  Here is a picture of a normal esophagus on the left, compared to Kasie's on the right. 
It took Kasie 2 years to get diagnosed. During those two years she endured countless tests, needles, and even worse-being told by multiple doctors that it was all in her head. Meanwhile, without being able to eat, she was slowly dying. She dropped from 130 pounds down to 85 and was having to go to the ER every few days to get IV fluids. She got Pneumonia 4 times from food stuck in her esophagus aspirating into her lungs. Achalasia also causes esophageal spasms, which have been compared to the feeling of a heart attack and described as the most painful thing you could ever experience...This is coming from a woman who has given birth 3 times. Kasie was also on a feeding tube for 9 months. She was told that if she ever went below 110 pounds, she would need the feeding tube again and it wouldn't come out. It took Kasie 2 years to get back to nearly 130 pounds, only to have a non related medical issue send her back down to 116, where she currently sits. Two years of hard work was derailed in a month. It was a big wake up call that she is never truly out of the woods.

Kasie isn't alone in this. Approximately 1 in 100,000 people are diagnosed every year, and recent reports show that number has grown to 1.6 per 100,000. I can only assume this is because of an increase in diagnoses. We really don't know exactly how many people out there are suffering and dying because their doctors just don't know what is going on.

This lack of awareness and education is exactly why I'm writing to you now.  A few months ago while watching Kasie suffer through spasms I decided I had to do something. I couldn't stand feeling helpless and not be able to do anything to help her. After a lot of research and planning, Kasie and I have decided to start a 501(c)(3) Non- Profit Organization with the primary goals of:

1. Educating the public and medical professionals so that lives can be saved through early diagnosis:
There are currently procedures that can be done(which Kasie has had) that are temporary fixes, but can prolong life and help you lead as normal of a life as possible.

2. Exploring all avenues for treatment and ultimately a cure and/or prevention:
Neither myself nor Kasie are medical professionals so we plan to partner with as many as we are able. We have heard some doctors claim that they know for sure that Achalasia is an auto-immune disease, while others claim that it is a genetic disorder. We've also talked to a chiropractor who adjusted Kasie and made more progress than any GI specialist ever did. His theory is still developing, but he thinks it could stem from a traumatic injury, which Kasie had prior to getting sick. On top of that, we've noticed that when Kasie is at sea level, she rarely has spasms or trouble(relative) getting food down, whereas where we live in Colorado, the symptoms are heightened. Monthly hormonal changes and stress also play a huge factor in spasms and episodes. All of these areas need to be explored and they simply haven't been. That is going to change.

We are asking for help with the initial start up costs of our Non-Profit Organization, "The Achalasia Research Foundation." The initial costs will be legal, professional and government fees to form the organization. While the actual costsmoving forward will be far greater, we will handle most of it ourselves. Once the 501(c)(3) status is approved, we can seriously start fundraising and grant writing to help move us toward our ultimate goal of curing Achalasia and making sure my beautiful wife is with me for as long as possible. Equal to, if not greater than monetary donations is your help sharing this story on social media. The more people who are aware of this disease, especially medical professionals, the closer we are to our goal. Thanks for taking the time to read.

Organizer

Tim Evans
Organizer
Ault, CO

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