Help Abby Find Relief From Chronic Pain

***Funding goal reached!!!***

My name is Brian Homan and I am raising money to send my daughter, Abby, to the Pediatric Pain Rehabilitation Program at the Cleveland Clinic. We have good medical insurance, but our provider has denied coverage for in-patient care for Abby’s three week treatment at the clinic. As such, we are footing the bill out of pocket and asking for help to manage the cost: $42,030 for the hospital stay and $17,550 for the therapy.

To give you some background, this all started three years ago with a really bad double ear infection after going swimming while on vacation. The pain was immense and when the infections went away, the pain never did. We saw many multiple doctors and therapists, did many tests and treatments, and tried multiple medications to try to resolve the pain; unfortunately, nothing worked. Pain led to sensitivity, not just in her ears but also around them. Normal conversation sounds like yelling to her. A slight breeze that blows her hair also provides a lot of pain. She hasn’t slept in a bed for almost the three years because reclining causes enough ear pain that she can’t sleep. Instead, she sleeps almost upright each night and gets only a few hours of rest.   

Don’t let the forced smile fool you, Abby lives with level 7 or 8 pain every day of her life. She was making progress to deal with this, but a bout of Covid in January has added lasting throat pain and chest pain to the mix. After that, she could no longer focus on school work or attend school for one hour a day in person (as much as she could stand prior to Covid). Like with her ears, when the Covid infection resolved, the pain never did.

At this point, after many unsuccessful treatments, doctors believe her brain is stuck in a pain response mode that it can’t get out of without help. This is why we are enrolling her in the pediatric pain clinic at Cleveland Clinic. Their program has helped many similar patients to not only manage their pain but also improve their quality of life.

Abby is a very sweet person, a loyal friend, an honors student and someone who has (despite all odds) remained very positive throughout this whole ordeal. Please help us give her a chance to beat this affliction and improve her quality of life going forward.

Thank you for reading this. Even if you are unable to give money, I would greatly appreciate you sharing this GoFundMe with your friends and family to help get the word out. Any funds raised in excess of the need will be donated to the Cleveland Clinic to help other families in similar situations.

May God richly bless you for taking this journey with us and helping Abby to get the care that she needs!