Relief for Skye Emerson

Living with Meniere’s disease means suffering through violent  rotational vertigo attacks, permanent hearing loss, and tinnitus (ringing in your ears).   In severe cases, it takes away your ability to travel alone or drive a car.  As a result, you are robbed of your true independence.  This is what Skye deals with on a daily basis.  She moves forward day by day as best as she physically can, but is riddled with anxiety, unsure of when the next attack will hit. There is no cure.  This is her story.    

Skye’s battle began 11 years ago in April 2004.  While leisurely walking down the street in Los Angeles, she suddenly fell to the ground, the world began violently spinning around  her.   She was rushed to Cedars Sinai Hospital, where she lay ill in the Emergency Room for over 12 hours. That was the day she was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease.  Her life as she’d lived for 27 years,as a perfectly healthy person, instantly and completelychanged.  Skye enjoys traveling, volunteering and working with animals, dancing,  and making films.   But for her, facing weekly vertigo attacks so severe meant that she was all too often rushed to the emergency room.   Her ability to fulfill her love of these things, diminished.

During one particularly horrific attack, she, as a result of vomiting for upwards of 14 hours, suffered a seizure due to lack of potassium and fluids. She has since undergone a plethora of medicinal approaches, none of which offered any relief from the dizziness or hearing loss. 

Having lived with this for almost 5 years, she went through horrible bouts of depression and suffered with anxiety.  She was unable to work and found herself withdrawing from her "normal" life, friends and activities.  She tried to press on, pretending she was alright.  However, she couldn’t feign normalcy anymore. 
   
Finally, in December of 2009, Skye underwent surgery.  The purpose of the procedure was to put a shunt into her inner ear in an effort to help drain excessive fluid. The shunt did not help, and her vertigo attacks returned less than three weeks later.   
   
In April of 2010, she again underwent an extremely dangerous and this time very invasive surgery referred to as The Vestibular Nerve Section. They accessed her brain through her skull from behind her ear where they had to completely severe her left balance nerve from her inner ear.  This essentially was so that the nerve would no longer have the ability to send dizzy signals (so to speak) to her brain. She spent several days in the ICU
recovering and due to the loss of her left balance nerve, several months of extreme and intense physical therapy were necessary.  Liken unto a child, Skye had to learn how to walk and balance all over again. 

For the next three years, the procedure brought her great relief and she felt relatively well. However, as is common with this disease, symptoms began to appear in her right ear; Her GOOD ear. With the return of dizziness came a new sense of hopelessness and fear. While very little treatment options exist for sufferers with one bad ear, even fewer options exist when both ears are afflicted.
   
Skye has become a tireless advocate for Meniere’s disease sufferers- hosting fundraisers for research, and most recently, directing and filming a documentary about this elusive and invisible disease. She has spent her life trying to help other humans and animals, and is in desperate need of our help
    
Very recently, she has been offered a new sense of hope.  A surgeon has been located who is performing a brand new procedure that has shown a 96% success rate of curing vertigo. While this procedure will not cure her illness, it may give her back a life without dizziness and debilitating attacks of vertigo. The unfortunate part of this whole discovery is that the surgery is only being performed outside of the U.S.  This means, her health insurance will not cover the cost of the procedure or follow up care. Thus far, Skye’s out-of-pocket medical expenses have exceeded $20,000 and I am hoping to be able to help make this surgery become a reality. 

She is SO selfless in giving of herself.  Anyone who knows her will agree.  She deserves to have
this chance at feeling well and living life without the
disabling effects of vertigo. 
    
Please PLEASE donate what you can and share her story in every possible way.  Whether it is via social media, email or word of mouth, let’s get her the help that she needs.  She deserves to have her LIFE BACK.