Help Gigi Fight Neurological Lyme Disease

Hello! Thank you for visiting this fundraiser. My name is Marlowe Miller and I am raising money for my dear friend Gigi Thibodeau: a published writer, teacher, photographer, gardener, and all-around creative human being with a great big heart and joy for life. Gigi has late-stage neurological Lyme disease and numerous co-infections. In the years that she has been ill, I have watched her change from an energetic powerhouse, often working on behalf of others, to someone who is unable to continue her career or perform most of the basic functions of everyday life.

I am asking for your assistance with funding the medical treatments essential to Gigi’s recovery. Most Lyme treatments are not covered by insurance, and so patients typically pay over $500 per week for tests, medications, and complementary therapies. After years of such expenses, coupled with her inability to work, Gigi's and her husband Todd’s financial resources are severely strained.

These treatments will help her regain her health and livelihood. They will also allow her to continue educating others through her writing about Lyme prevention, testing, and treatment, as well as about the stark realities of daily life with this illness. As sick as she is, Gigi has also begun developing a creative writing course for Lyme warriors and other chronically ill patients, so that they too can share their stories, raise awareness, and foster hope---both for themselves and for others.

Gigi's story

Gigi woke up one morning over four years ago with flu-like malaise, sudden impairments in vision, and neck and upper back pain that would not get better, no matter how much physical therapy she did. As with many of the half million people who contract Lyme each year in the United States, Gigi never saw a tick bite (ticks can be as small as poppyseeds), and she never had the bullseye rash that is known as the hallmark of a Borrelia (Lyme) infection. Dozens more symptoms followed, leaving this former English teacher increasingly housebound, and eventually bed-bound, unable to bathe without assistance, look at a computer screen, listen to music, or even read a book.

She consulted numerous doctors and underwent extensive testing, receiving a long string of misdiagnoses and ineffective therapies and treatments. After two years of debilitating vertigo and declining health, she was finally properly tested and accurately diagnosed by a Lyme-literate doctor in early 2020. Gigi has what is called late-stage neurological Lyme, as well as the co-infections Bartonella, Babesia, and Mycoplasma. Her Lyme has also reactivated Epstein-Barr Virus, which has led to autoimmune thyroid dysfunction. The longer a person has undiagnosed Lyme, the harder it is to treat. Lyme goes deep into cells, tissues, and mitochondria and can be destructive to every system in the body, including the heart, nervous system, and brain.

Even though Gigi has tenaciously pursued a host of treatment protocols, she has sustained damage to her nerves, joints, brain, muscles, and internal organs. Gigi suffers from 24/7 dizziness, derealization (a surreal out-of-body feeling where your brain doesn't know where your body is in space), vision dysfunction, joint pain with intermittent joint locking, fainting spells, neuropathy in her limbs and head, trigeminal neuralgia, profound fatigue, nausea, cognitive challenges, memory loss, and disorientation. Understandably, she often struggles with feelings of profound anxiety and even despair.

Gigi needs our help. From the college classroom to adult education courses and one-on-one tutorials with adults and children, she has devoted most of her life to helping others find their creative voice. Her goal now is to apply her skills as a writer and teacher, coupled with what she has learned from her struggles with Lyme, to help other patients tap into their creativity and live as fully and richly as possible as they make their way along their own painful, complex, frustrating, and expensive journeys to wellness. To that end, line by painful line, and often without being able to look at the page, she is writing a creative workbook for them. In the dedication to the book, she reaches out to her fellow Lyme warriors:

For those crouched

alone on the edge

of the glacier. For

those tossed

in a boat on the how-

ling sea.

For those lost in the heart

of the darkening forest

where the moon hangs hidden

beyond the trees.

To them, Gigi says, "Here is a voice," and "I will find you, you will find me."

Please give what you can.

Marlowe