💗Support for chronic illness treatment post COVID

💗Updated 9/11/26💗

Help Me Reclaim My Future: My Fight Against Long COVID

For most of my life, I dedicated myself to helping others.

I began my career in EMS before becoming an emergency department registered nurse, and I later worked an additional on-call job as a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE nurse). I was athletic, active, independent, and passionate about caring for people during some of the hardest moments of their lives.

Then, in July 2021, I got COVID.

I never fully recovered.

What began as one infection triggered a devastating cascade of health problems that progressively took away my health, independence, career, and the life I once knew.

I continued pushing myself to work in healthcare for as long as my body allowed, but I became progressively sicker. By March 2024, I could no longer work and became fully disabled.

What COVID Has Done to My Body

Since becoming sick, I have accumulated multiple serious diagnoses and complications affecting nearly every aspect of my life.

I now live with Long COVID/PASC, ME/CFS with severe post-exertional malaise (PEM), dysautonomia/POTS with presyncope and syncope, mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), neurological and cognitive dysfunction, vascular and endothelial dysfunction, and severe amyloid fibrin microclotting.

I was also diagnosed with May-Thurner syndrome, a severe compression of a major vein in my pelvis. The compression was approximately 90–95% and ultimately required placement of a large iliac vein stent.

I also experience significant gastrointestinal dysfunction and numerous neurological and autonomic symptoms that continue to be investigated.

Together, these illnesses have transformed me from an active emergency nurse into someone who is now mostly bedbound, relies on a wheelchair for community mobility, requires daily caregiving, and has a central line for daily IV fluids to help manage my severe dysautonomia.

I experience profound exercise intolerance, orthostatic symptoms, episodes of presyncope and syncope, cognitive impairment, pain, and severe post-exertional crashes. Something as simple as showering, sitting upright for too long, attending a medical appointment, or leaving the house can cause my body to crash for days or even weeks afterward.

This is not the life I imagined for myself.

But I am still fighting for it.

Searching for Answers

Over the past several years, I have pursued countless specialists, appointments, tests, medications, procedures, and treatments in an effort to understand what COVID did to my body and find a path toward recovery.

In the process, I have drained my savings and retirement funds and accumulated enormous medical and disability-related expenses.

Earlier in 2026, I traveled to Alabama to see a physician experienced in Long COVID and microclot-related illness. Specialized testing identified a severe burden of amyloid fibrin microclots along with endothelial and vascular dysfunction.

For the first time, I had objective findings that helped explain some of what might be happening inside my body.

Those findings eventually took me halfway around the world.

My Treatment in Japan 🇯🇵

In the summer of 2026, because of the extraordinary generosity of family, friends, donors, and complete strangers who shared my story, I was able to travel to Japan for an intensive experimental treatment program at Edogawa Hospital.

I became patient #45 in the Edogawa/McCairn protocol.

Over approximately one month, I underwent 4 dual-filtration plasmapheresis treatments and 23 stem cell growth factor (SGF) infusions.

The goal was to remove as much of the abnormal circulating material from my blood as possible and give my body an opportunity to begin healing.

I went to Japan desperately hoping for a dramatic or even miraculous recovery.

While I have had some meaningful improvements, Japan was not the end of my story.

Since returning home I have experienced small but meaningful improvements, particularly in my fatigue and brain fog, but I have also experienced new concerning symptoms that has made my medical journey even more complicated…and expensive.

I have developed new neurological symptoms, including episodes of numbness and tingling affecting my hands, feet, buttocks, groin, and genital area. During one episode, I suddenly became unable to urinate and required placement of a Foley catheter after approximately 500 mL of urinary retention was discovered.

I have required multiple emergency room evaluations and am now undergoing further neurological and urological investigation.

My doctors are also investigating a concerning decline in my hemoglobin and hematocrit. Because I take medications that affect clotting as part of my treatment for vascular and microclotting abnormalities, my medical team wants to determine whether there is an unidentified source of blood loss or another explanation for the falling counts.

These new problems are still being investigated, and I do not yet have all of the answers.

My Long COVID specialist at OHSU is pursuing additional testing and believes my neurological symptoms require more specialized evaluation.

At the same time, specialized immune testing has also identified abnormalities that I need an expert to help interpret.

The Next Step for this: Specialized Care in Utah

One of my next major steps is traveling to Utah for an appointment with Dr. Doug Jones, an immunologist who evaluates complex immune dysfunction.

Unfortunately, this care is out of pocket.

My initial appointment alone is approximately $600. The specialized laboratory testing will also be out of pocket, followed by an approximately $300 appointment to review the results, with additional follow-ups costing approximately $150 each.

I also have to cover airfare, lodging, transportation, and the additional expenses required for someone with my level of disability to travel safely for medical care.

I also have other long-awaited specialty appointments here in Oregon, including one I have waited nearly two years to obtain with a genetic doctor-also not covered by insurance and completely out of pocket.

After years of illness, I cannot afford to lose access to these opportunities for answers simply because I have run out of money.

Why I Still Need Help 💗

I wish more than anything that I could have returned from Japan and closed this fundraiser with the words:

“It worked. I’m better.”

Instead, my story is still being written.

I have experienced some encouraging changes, and I remain hopeful about what treatment may have accomplished. But I am still severely ill, still disabled, and still searching for answers.

Returning home from Japan did not mean the medical bills stopped.

I continue to require specialty appointments, extensive testing, medications, daily supportive treatment, caregiving, mobility assistance, and travel to physicians who understand the complexity of my illness.

Donations to this fundraiser help me:

• Access specialized medical appointments and testing that insurance does not cover

• Travel to physicians and specialists who understand complex Long COVID and its complications

• Pay for airfare, lodging, transportation, and disability-related travel expenses

• Continue medications, IV therapy, testing, and supportive treatments

• Pay remaining expenses associated with treatment I have already received

• Cover caregiving and disability-related expenses while I remain unable to work

• Pursue additional treatment if my doctors and future testing show that it is necessary

Before I became sick, I was the person taking care of other people.

Asking other people to help take care of me has been one of the hardest parts of this entire journey.

But I cannot do this alone.

I am not ready to accept that this is as much of my life as I will ever get back, I want more.

And someday, I would love nothing more than to be the one helping others again.

Until then, I will keep searching for answers, pursuing treatment, sharing what I learn, and fighting for every bit of function and quality of life I can regain.

If you are able to donate—even a small amount—thank you. Every contribution helps me continue accessing the medical care I need.

If you cannot donate, sharing my fundraiser is incredibly meaningful. Every share gives my story the opportunity to reach someone new.

And to everyone who has already donated, shared my story, prayed for me, supported my family, or helped make my treatment in Japan possible:

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

You helped me get to Japan when I could never have gotten there alone. You gave me an opportunity to pursue treatment when conventional medicine had very few options left to offer me.

Now I am asking for your help with the next chapter.

I don’t know exactly where this road will lead.

But I am still here.

Still fighting. Still hopeful. Still searching for answers. And still determined to reclaim as much of my life as possible. 💗

Thank you for standing beside me through the hardest fight of my life—for my life.