Empowering Alicia in the fight against UC

Hey y’all! My name is Maggie recently my sister Alicia experienced some extreme medical conditions. After 20 days in the hospital I wanted to create this GoFundMe to help with medical bills and future treatments.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, Alicia felt that her celiac issues were causing her grief. After a few weeks she quickly realized something else was wrong. On 12/16 my brother in law convinced her to go to the ER. Diagnosed with severe colitis they eventually kept her for further testing. After working with a GI doctor they found she had severe ulcerative colitis and treated her in the hospital until 12/23 when she was released to be home with her family for Christmas.

Unfortunately, that didn’t last too long. The day after Christmas my Brother In Law had to call for an ambulance, my sister was weak, in pain and unable to move.

Once back in the hospital Alicia had a new scan, and the doctors realized things were getting vastly worse. The current medicine was not working. So they took a different route and changed her medicine. Over the next few days the doctors continued to see no improvement. With the current treatments not working the doctors came up with another form of treatment which resulted in a biological infusion to help with internal bleeding, and inflammation. For about a week she had a standby emergency surgery team ready to go should she need emergency surgery to have her colon removed. Finally on January 2nd all internal bleeding stopped and things started to improve. Thank you Jesus! By January 4th she started to eat solid food and removed from liquid diet. she was finally sent home with home health care on January 7th.

While at home she will need to have at home nurses, physical therapy, and occupational therapy until she is better! She will also still be getting infusions for the next few months.

So as there are many versions of ulcer colitis, Alicia’s is the one that her body thinks she’s sick so her body starts attacking itself to help heal her. All biopsies and scans came back clean and negative for any malignancies, viruses or infections. This version of ulcerative colitis caused so much pain it was hard to physically eat or drink. This has been a hard and scary experience for all of us. She finally is starting to feel better and is actually texting and talking to my sister and I which is great news because at the beginning we wouldn’t hear from her. Her husband has been so helpful through this whole process!

As her sisters living in another state, we just wanted to do something small to help offset any financial burdens of Co-pays, weekly prescriptions, and other medical expenses that may rise in the meantime. Michael is the sole financial provider, we just wanted to help ease any financial burdens the best we could.

If you're unable to financially contribute, Alicia just is asking for prayers. Psalm 23 & 91 have been the two she really leans into, knowing the Lord is their provider, protector, and healer.