Help Victoria Stomp MS!
Donation protected
Help Victoria Stomp MS!
Hello, my name is Christine Kesler and I need your help. Those who know me and my family know that we are usually the first to jump in and help people and the last to ask for help but right now we need all the help we can get.
My beautiful, sweet, and talented daughter Victoria has medical needs that exceed what we can pay for. She has multiple sclerosis and there are so many things we cannot get the insurance company to cover. Since her diagnosis in 2014, we have accumulated more than $30,000 in copays, coinsurance, and medical costs that haven’t been covered. Now we have a chance to stop the progression of her disease and maybe see improvement, but again, the insurance company is stalling and hedging. Please help me pay to take her to get stem cell therapy at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. They have a 90% success rate at stopping MS in its tracks—and 70% of patients see marked improvement in movement, functionality, and vision.
The treatment, living expenses—someone will need to go with her (that means one less income for six weeks)—and cost of travel is more than $120,000. That will bring our medical total to more than $150,000. We are already struggling to pay off what we owe and cannot afford this treatment that she desperately needs. If you can donate anything, please, please help. We would like to start treatment in spring 2017, if we can raise the money.
Victoria and her brother in 1999.
BACKGROUND:
Victoria was a normal, average girl for the first 18 years of her life. She loved butterflies, flowers, and books, theater and high heels, and chocolate and cappuccino. She was going to college, driving, and working a job. She was always smiling and helping people.
Did I mention she loves theater??? Take a bow, dear.
In April of 2014 Victoria went for an eye exam because she thought she needed a new pair of glasses. The optometrist—God bless him—took one look at her eyes and immediately started calling neuro-ophthalmologists trying to get her an appointment that same day. Within two days she had multiple exams, tests, labs, and a diagnosis of multiple-sclerosis. But Victoria is no quitter. She managed to finish out that semester of college even with blinding headaches, balance issues, and overwhelming exhaustion. I’m proud to say that Victoria is a lady of character. She willingly gave up her driver’s license when she realized it was no longer safe for her to drive. She cried when she gave it up, realizing she was losing her independence, but she said, “Mom, I can’t drive, I could kill someone, how could I live with that?”
Cha, cha, cha-cha!
Since that day in April Victoria has needed more and more help. She loses her balance and falls several times a day—even with the use of a walker; she is legally blind, and is nearly home-bound since we have virtually no public transportation in our area and what is available is cost-prohibitive. She has packed away all of her beloved high-heeled shoes. We’ve padded every surface that we can to try to minimize injuries when she falls.
Yet she still struggles on. Now she enjoys books through an e-reader and works with her butterflies with the help of a CCTV device, and she has to hope someone will remember to bring her the sweet treats she loves, but she still gets up every day and tries to help around the house before collapsing into a chair when her eyes and legs give out. She is no longer allowed outside without someone with her (since the day I came home from work and found her sitting out by the mailbox—she had fallen two hours earlier and couldn’t get back up to the house) and she goes fewer and fewer places since she gets carsick and tires easily.
Victoria is a great kid. All she wants is to be like everyone else. She wants to finish college, get a job, buy a house, and have a family. She wants to be a part of the world, to go back to digging in the garden, to go to the store when she wants, to dance around in her favorite shoes and to be able to enjoy things we all take for granted. Please help me give my daughter back the life she deserves. Please help me pay for my daughter’s medical treatment.
August 2016--She never made it to ComiCon—it took an hour just to get her in the outfit and she was exhausted by the time we were done—but she had a good time playing dress-up. (I thought she should have picked Daredevil since she already has the white cane, but she’s a Cap kinda gal!)
January 2017--Here she is visiting the “fuzzies” at Gibraltar Bay Alpacas. Thank God they seem to understand she “hugs” them to keep upright.
For more information on the stem cell therapy treatment Victoria is going to go through check out the following links:
Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Ill.
Hospital website: https://www.nm.org/
Dr. Burt’s physician page: http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/faculty-profiles/az/profile.html?xid=14172
Info on the clinical trial (which it really isn’t anymore): https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00273364?term=Northwestern+AND+Multiple+sclerosis&rank=1
Hello, my name is Christine Kesler and I need your help. Those who know me and my family know that we are usually the first to jump in and help people and the last to ask for help but right now we need all the help we can get.
My beautiful, sweet, and talented daughter Victoria has medical needs that exceed what we can pay for. She has multiple sclerosis and there are so many things we cannot get the insurance company to cover. Since her diagnosis in 2014, we have accumulated more than $30,000 in copays, coinsurance, and medical costs that haven’t been covered. Now we have a chance to stop the progression of her disease and maybe see improvement, but again, the insurance company is stalling and hedging. Please help me pay to take her to get stem cell therapy at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. They have a 90% success rate at stopping MS in its tracks—and 70% of patients see marked improvement in movement, functionality, and vision.
The treatment, living expenses—someone will need to go with her (that means one less income for six weeks)—and cost of travel is more than $120,000. That will bring our medical total to more than $150,000. We are already struggling to pay off what we owe and cannot afford this treatment that she desperately needs. If you can donate anything, please, please help. We would like to start treatment in spring 2017, if we can raise the money.
Victoria and her brother in 1999.BACKGROUND:
Victoria was a normal, average girl for the first 18 years of her life. She loved butterflies, flowers, and books, theater and high heels, and chocolate and cappuccino. She was going to college, driving, and working a job. She was always smiling and helping people.
Did I mention she loves theater??? Take a bow, dear.In April of 2014 Victoria went for an eye exam because she thought she needed a new pair of glasses. The optometrist—God bless him—took one look at her eyes and immediately started calling neuro-ophthalmologists trying to get her an appointment that same day. Within two days she had multiple exams, tests, labs, and a diagnosis of multiple-sclerosis. But Victoria is no quitter. She managed to finish out that semester of college even with blinding headaches, balance issues, and overwhelming exhaustion. I’m proud to say that Victoria is a lady of character. She willingly gave up her driver’s license when she realized it was no longer safe for her to drive. She cried when she gave it up, realizing she was losing her independence, but she said, “Mom, I can’t drive, I could kill someone, how could I live with that?”
Cha, cha, cha-cha! Since that day in April Victoria has needed more and more help. She loses her balance and falls several times a day—even with the use of a walker; she is legally blind, and is nearly home-bound since we have virtually no public transportation in our area and what is available is cost-prohibitive. She has packed away all of her beloved high-heeled shoes. We’ve padded every surface that we can to try to minimize injuries when she falls.
Yet she still struggles on. Now she enjoys books through an e-reader and works with her butterflies with the help of a CCTV device, and she has to hope someone will remember to bring her the sweet treats she loves, but she still gets up every day and tries to help around the house before collapsing into a chair when her eyes and legs give out. She is no longer allowed outside without someone with her (since the day I came home from work and found her sitting out by the mailbox—she had fallen two hours earlier and couldn’t get back up to the house) and she goes fewer and fewer places since she gets carsick and tires easily.
Victoria is a great kid. All she wants is to be like everyone else. She wants to finish college, get a job, buy a house, and have a family. She wants to be a part of the world, to go back to digging in the garden, to go to the store when she wants, to dance around in her favorite shoes and to be able to enjoy things we all take for granted. Please help me give my daughter back the life she deserves. Please help me pay for my daughter’s medical treatment.
August 2016--She never made it to ComiCon—it took an hour just to get her in the outfit and she was exhausted by the time we were done—but she had a good time playing dress-up. (I thought she should have picked Daredevil since she already has the white cane, but she’s a Cap kinda gal!)January 2017--Here she is visiting the “fuzzies” at Gibraltar Bay Alpacas. Thank God they seem to understand she “hugs” them to keep upright.For more information on the stem cell therapy treatment Victoria is going to go through check out the following links:
Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Ill.
Hospital website: https://www.nm.org/
Dr. Burt’s physician page: http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/faculty-profiles/az/profile.html?xid=14172
Info on the clinical trial (which it really isn’t anymore): https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00273364?term=Northwestern+AND+Multiple+sclerosis&rank=1
Organizer and beneficiary
Christine Kesler
Organizer
Trenton, MI
Christine Kesler
Beneficiary
