Support Lisa’s Long COVID Medical & Lodging Needs

Hi friends,

This is a difficult ask but vital and time sensitive to my health and living situation as I’m facing housing and food insecurity. I’m urgently in need of financial support for my medical and lodging expenses and hope you will help me survive. I have disabling Long COVID, ME/CFS, Dysautonomia, neurological vision impairment and am recovering from external beam radiation treatment on a Stage 1 lung tumor.

The last 4 1/2 years have been the most frightening & humbling of my life. I initially caught COVID in 2020 and was briefly hospitalized. I never recovered. My acute symptoms were mainly cardiac and neurological. The ongoing fatigue and cognitive dysfunction have been crushing and left me unable to work or maintain most daily activities. I have been diagnosed with Long COVID, POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), Orthostatic Intolerance, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, autonomic nervous system dysfunction, chronic pain, peripheral neuropathy, cognitive impairment, dystonia and vision loss. I rely on mobility aids including a cane, rollator and electric wheelchair to prevent fainting, conserve energy and increase mobility. My June 2023 COVID reinfection worsened my condition, erased some of my gains and brought new complications. I have been housebound except for medical appointments for over two years and am often bedbound due to fatigue and orthostatic intolerance. 

 I am being seen by knowledgeable doctors and have been through a magnitude of testing, scans, repurposed medication trials and infusions but there are only scarce treatments to manage symptoms, no cures. I have worked so hard to get this access to care. I have exhausted most of my funds and credit just trying to survive. I’m having to choose between care and food.

 Your contributions will help me continue pursuing medical care and treatment including 

 It is with a heavy heart that I’m asking for help. I survived thyroid cancer in 2006 but Long COVID has been much harder physically and has also affected my mental health and outlook. I remain very involved in learning and staying informed about my conditions, am active as a Long COVID patient advocate/ Lived Experience Expert for research and am enrolled in The Yale Listen Study and look forward to upcoming drug trials addressing viral persistence. I’m not giving up.

 Any amount helps and so does sharing the link with friends and family. I will be sure to post progress updates and I remain hopeful my health improves. I want to be well enough to work again, go out with friends again and rescue a shelter dog again. I want to be able to watch Lewis Hamilton win a Formula 1 race at the track not on TV (one can dream.) I still have many big goals to accomplish, I just need some help getting there.

Thank you,

Lisa          

Photo from 2020 COVID hospitalization. I had no idea I wouldn’t recover. There has not been a symptom-free day since my initial infection, it has been a roller coaster. 

Many days with Long COVID and ME/CFS look like this. Chronic fatigue isn’t the same as being sleepy. It feels like a concussion and being hit by a bus with no energy. It’s like my battery never fully charges and sleep is nonrefreshing. Too much physical, cognitive or emotional energy as well as stimulus like light and sound can cause a symptom flare or crash. This Post Exertional Malaise has left me feeling sick and bedbound for weeks during the most severe crashes. 

POTS/ orthostatic intolerance = Going from lying down to sitting up or standing my heart rate increases by 30+ as the blood pools in my legs and my heart rate speeds up trying to get more blood to my heart. I have palpitations, dizziness, brain fog and risk fainting or falling. 

Undergoing external beam radiation in January 2025 on a lung tumor that tripled in size since it was discovered in 2021.