Please Stand With Us, Our Battle Is Far From Over.

Hello, My name is Teddy and I'm fundraising for my wife, Dana. Some of you know her by her first name, JoAnna. No matter what you call her, if you know her, you know her presence, and the spitfire heart that beats inside her.

Sadly, over the last few months, both her son and I have watched that fire get smaller and smaller.

In September of 2023, Dana (JoAnna) received a dual diagnosis of necrotizing pneumonia and invasive aspergilliosis. The necrotizing pneumonia was bad enough yet easily treatable. The diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis was devastating.

Due to how rare this disease is, even for patients who have weak immune systems; for someone like her, who has a healthy immune system, this diagnosis stopped her world on a dime. And the treatment options are very limited.

Currently, expensive antifungal medication, strong steroids that deplete her immune system, and double-strength antibiotics to try and keep her from catching any other illness have been her daily routine.

In her last scans, we got good and bad news. Depending on how you want to look at it.

The pneumonia is gone, which should have been great news. However, pneumonia disappeared because the aspergillosis basically 'ate it'. If that makes sense. The bad news is that Aspergillosis has now 'migrated'.

Originally, it was closer to the center of her chest and was loosely attached. Now, it has moved to the right, near her lymph nodes, and solidified in the open cavities left behind by the pneumonia.

The medications are not helping, and our insurance doesn't cover partial organ removal.

Invasive aspergillosis is not a disease that many people have ever heard of. We hadn't, and research on it is ridiculously hard. Invasive aspergilliosis is incredibly rare.

Aspergillus is a very common household mold. It is in pine straw, leaf piles, and wood chips. It is something that every single human breathes in daily, without issue. However, unknown to us, our apartment walls were/are saturated with it.

This disease is terminal. Without treatment, most people pass within three to five years after first diagnosis. Dana had the rest of her life planned out. She was back in school. She maintained the Dean's list for an entire year, while still being an incredible mother, wife, and nurse.

She would work 12 to 14 hours some days, and sometimes she would work 8 or 9 days in a row as a psychiatric nurse. Now, she can barely go grocery shopping without having to use her nebulizer as soon as she gets home.

Being a nurse has been her passion since she was a child. Before being placed in the foster system in her early teens, Dana (JoAnna) was raised by a single mother who was also a nurse, and she grew up in nursing homes. These experiences molded her ability to help people both physically and mentally. Watching her interact with those who are in need, is truly humbling.

Our family, without her, would fall apart. She gives her all in everything she does. She has been a nurse for over a decade and pours her heart out to her patients while still saving enough love and patience to put up with me, a teenage son, and two rowdy dogs.

She loves the outdoors and tries to give her son new experiences whenever she can. Now, because of this disease, she sits on the patio and just watches the wind blow in the trees. I've watched her silent tears more times than I can count.

We're asking for help because we want to save my wife. I'm asking for help because I want to save my wife. She has been unable to work. I work, but it has become so intermittent because she truly needs so much help at home. The apartment we live in is infested with this mold and is only making her sicker. We've filed with the complex and have to now be out by the end of January. We have nowhere to go and no money to go. We can't afford the surgery that will save her, and now we can't afford to pay for the insurance that helps cover her doctor visits and medications.

We're asking for help because we don't know what else to do and we are truly scared. Any funds donated will go directly to her healthcare and a roof over our family's head. She needs this surgery, and she needs a safe, healthy place to recover. With us having to leave, We need to find this safe place, quickly. She is getting worse by the day, any help, at all, means everything to us.