Help Meghan Receive Spinal Cord Surgery

In 2019, Meghan Schroeder was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome(EDS) and in addition, was informed that she needed a procedure called “Tethered Spinal Cord Release” in 2021. We are raising this GoFundMe in hopes to help Meghan obtain the Tethered Cord surgery she needs to even begin to try to recover from a multitude of diagnoses.

Meghan is a loving mom of two beautiful children (including a 6 month old), an avid animal rescuer who owns a farm of rescued equines, and a passionate sister, friend and daughter. Since being diagnosed with EDS and a tethered spinal cord-Meghan has found her day to day life has been severely impacted to the point of extremely limited mobility and routine hospital visits leaving her in a difficult situation in even completing normal day to day tasks. Over the last year alone, she has had hospital/inpatient visits in the double digits and has had spinal blood patches completed to stem a spinal fluid leak caused by the symptoms of EDS. She has continued to accrue bills in seeing numerous specialists, travel for doctor visits, and loss of funds in being unable to work.

Patients with EDS have hypermobile body parts with the spinal cord and filium being less stretchy causing lack of mobility. Meghan has been diagnosed with severe lack of mobility in addition to cervical instability in C4-C5 vertebrae. The separate condition of Tethered cord restricts her spinal cord causing it to be twisted or kinked instead of free moving-which in turn caused a spinal fluid leak within the past 6 months. In addition, this diagnosis has caused severe neurological issues that has hindered every day tasks and life.

The combination of these medical diagnoses can leave patients with severe leg weakness (including the inability to walk for days), inability to utilize stairs, aide needed in simple tasks such as using the bathroom, inability to control bowel movements, consistent shooting pains, severe migraines that last months at a time, numbness and loss of sensation below the waist, inability to bend, and history of leg/foot turning even from a young age. Meghan has lived with many of the symptoms of these conditions for years.

Since being diagnosed with the Tethered Cord Syndrome, multiple outside circumstances affected her ability to go through with the surgery including COVID, Specialist Health Cancellations, and cancellation due to pregnancy. Meghan is finally approved and able to proceed with the surgery with her Specialists in Rhode Island in the upcoming months. We are asking for support and help to allow Meghan to financially afford the costs of the associated surgery including lodging for the 2 weeks minimum required after surgery and surgery costs in addition to helping alleviate financial bills at home that have happened with inability to work and help cover the upcoming months of her recovery such as animal care, feed, and even food while in Rhode Island.

EDS is a life long battle with no cure, but we are full of hope that this one additional surgery can help put Meghan back into her normal day to day life. We appreciate any and all support and thank you all from the bottom of our hearts! All proceeds are sent to Meghan and her family directly.