Angel's Brain Surgery

My name is Ashley Griffith and I am creating this GoFundMe for my mother in-law, Angel Griffith. This will be the second GoFundMe that my husband and I have created for her, though this time is a little different. Around this time in 2016, Angel started looking into surgical treatment for her Chiari Malformation. She found a surgeon through Ohio State University Hospital who she feels can help her. The original GoFundMe was created in order to cover her medical expenses as well as travel, food, and lodging to be able to make it to Columbus to have the consultations. Since 2016 she has had four consultations with this surgeon, who feels that she cannot push off the surgery any longer due to irreparable nerve damage to her brain stem and central nervous system that the Chiari has caused her. Her surgery is scheduled for August 17th, 2018. The surgery is known as decompression brain surgery. This surgery will require her to make four trips to Columbus during the month of August. One for pre-op, the following week would be the surgery which will require her to stay at the hospital for 3-4 days without complications. This will be followed by a week later post-op visit, and a second post-op visit a week after that. Any donations will be used to cover the doctor visits, tests, transportation, stay, food, and any other absolute necessities we will need for her while there. The surgery itself will total about $80,000; BUT we are unsure at this point in time how much Medicare will cover. Any excess donations will go to whatever expenses are not covered by Medicare.

Lastly, we would like to add that any prayers would be greatly appreciated as well.  If you would like to see a more in depth explanation of my mother in-law's condition you can check out the first GoFundMe we completed back in 2016.  To make it very brief, Chiari Malformation is when the cerebellar tonsils abnormally grow, pulling the brain down towards the spinal column. This puts pressure on her brain stem constricting spinal fluid flow. Not only does this cause spinal fluid blockage, it causes many different symptoms that worsen over time. Some of Angel's symptoms consist of angina, tinnitus, numbness and tingling throughout her body, nerve damage and severe migraines. We are hoping that the surgery will help resolve some of her symptoms since at this point in time there is no definite cure. 

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