Fundraiser for Jasmine's Health Expenses

Hi everyone! Thanks for taking the time to look at this GoFundMe!

As some of you already know, my partner's youngest sister Jasmine is going through some pretty serious health challenges at the moment. She has only just turned 20 last week and is already facing a painful, lifelong challenge which we as a family want to support her through in any way we can.

We have already been showered with offers of support which we appreciate so much, so as things progress we would like to humbly and gratefully accept those offers if they still stand and reach out to others for some assistance in this very expensive process. Any amount is helpful and will go towards making sure Jasmine has access to everything she needs.

I will explain more about Jasmine’s condition below but firstly would like to explain what sorts of things we need to pay for, so that if you’re willing to donate to this fund you know where your money is going.

Things we need to pay for (even if they seem small, they all add up!)

1. Costs of living - ie food/groceries

Jasmine was originally studying to be a childcare educator but can no longer work or study given her condition. Centrelink still haven’t processed her disability claim after multiple applications and follow-ups. This means she’s only on Youth Allowance payments with Youth Disability Supplement, which is a very dismal amount that only just covers her rent/bills, leaving her with barely any extra money for groceries, getting to appointments, let alone medications she needs every day.

2. Medications

Jas is on several different daily medications at present, as well as fentanyl pain patches which are pricy.

3. Transport to medical appointments and frequent surgeries

Currently she has at least 1 appointment per week at the hospital or medical centre - normally one of us will drive Jasmine to the appointment and parking there is very expensive. For a surgery we may have to be parked at the hospital all day/night which is a huge cost.

(Alternatively public transport/Uber would be an option for last-minute appointments where none of us can drive her, but we prefer not to have her go on the bus or train alone and Ubers are more expensive than parking.)

4. Costs of Private treatment options

We do have some treatment through the public health system in the works at the moment, involving multiple surgeries for the rest of Jasmine's life, however it's not the most ideal situation (being in surgery, recovery, back into surgery again over and over, wouldn't be able to work) plus these surgeries are extremely risky and difficult for surgeons to do. The more times she has surgery the higher the risks are. This has been our only option so far though as that's all they can come up with.

So we are looking to find some alternate treatment options or surgeons who might have other ideas - this would involve visits to some private specialists/surgeons but we can’t book any appointments yet without the funds, so we are currently going through the public system which as I mentioned has quite limited treatment options.

5. If required, travel costs for interstate or overseas treatment

It's possible we'd have to fly Jas +1 accompanying care person to go interstate or overseas for treatment as we may not be able to get this in Australia.

We'd love to keep it all in Perth and not have to go anywhere, but so far there's no one over here who can seem to help.

Now, onto what's actually happening with Jas...

Please keep in mind I'm not a doctor but just relaying what we have been told.

- The main concern and issue is that Jasmine is already in the early stages of high output heart failure, this started at age 19.

- The cause of this is an Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM) that was left untreated for a long time depsite efforts to get it better looked at.

- Many people have these malformations on a small scale - if you google Arteriovenous Malformation you may see cases of small-medium malformations which can usually be fixed with early intervention and surgery. They do cause pain and discomfort, and when they are large, disfiguration. See below for what the arteries look like in a regular person VS in an AVM.

- Jasmine's AVM was first seen when she was 7, but doctors opted to wait until she stopped growing before they would decide what to do. By 19 the AVM had become so large that most doctors would not touch it, many saying that it's started to behave like a tumour and it's too risky to operate on. It's caused Jasmine extreme pain, self-conciousness due to the size, and now mobility issues - with the AVM being so large she has lost so much range in her left arm that she can't tie up her hair, make her bed, and other simple daily tasks.

- At this point in time the AVM protruding from the body is about the size of a basketball and covers a large area of her back, shoulder, arm and also obviously goes inside her body as well. The large tangle of arteries is dangerously close to her heart and other organs which makes it so difficult to operate on.. as if the size of it wasn't already making it too difficult. The picture below shows how large this has become.

- The whole AVM is full of large arteries as shown in the previous image and therefore Jasmine's heart has to work so much harder than it should, to keep blood pumping through the arteries and the rest of her body. This puts so much strain on her heart that as mentioned before heart failure has already set in. Heart failure causes a whole new range of symptoms.

- The main goal at the moment is to slow down the progression of heart failure so that we don't see it ultimately cut her life short.

One small surgery has been done to inject onyx into some of the arteries to stop the amount of blood flow, but to tackle this properly Jas will need to have surgery after surgery, each one with a lot of risks. This is why many doctors won't touch her case - it's too risky. More surgeries like this can be done but will involve lots of recovery, still being out of work and also doctors will need to find alternates to onyx, as having too much in the body can be toxic. Alcohol/ethanol injected into the arteries to kill them off was considered, however the risk would be alcohol poisoning, skin necrosis, as well as the alcohol killing surrounding tissue/muscle/nerves and travelling through the bloodstream to places we don't want it to go.

- The secondary goal is to reduce the size and appearance of the AVM. You can see a picture below of how big it has become. Reducing the size would give Jasmine back some mobility and definitely help to reduce pain and discomfort as well as giving her her confidence back! So far, we don't really have any options to acheive this.

If you've made it to the end, thank you for reading this and I hope you will consider donating so that Jasmine can live comfortably for the meantime, and hopefully receive better treatment in the near future.

She is a kind, beautiful young woman who we absolutely want to keep around for as long as we possibly can, and it would mean the world to us to be able to see her acheive all her goals and live a healthy life eventually.

Love Carly, Bec, Josh, Joel, Jenevieve and Jeddy

We love you Jasmine! xx

Below are some Angiogram scans for reference. Please reach out if you have any questions x