Help Nicole Fight Lyme Disease

Our dear friend Nicole needs your help! As many of you may know she has been struggling with a myriad of health issues for over a year including debilitating fatigue, chest pain, shortness of breath, migraines, vertigo, and muscle/joint pain among others. Diagnosing the cause of these symptoms has been an exhausting year long process of blood tests, MRI’s, and CT scans, and countless blood draws to test everything from Lupus to MS and beyond. It has left seven different specialists stumped until recently when Nicole was able to trace the cause to an unassuming yet insidious tick bite. Thanks to a cutting-edge clinic in Vancouver (and the insistence by many friends to keep advocating for her health) Nicole was able to identify her symptoms as Lyme Disease.

Like us, many of you have probably heard of Lyme but don’t really know what it is. Basically, Lyme is a bacterial infection primarily transmitted by ticks that is unfortunately really hard to diagnose. It is often called "The Great Imitator", as the symptoms are so wide-spread and similar to many other diseases. In Canada, the CDC uses a two-tiered system to officially diagnose Lyme disease which is only effective during the early stages of symptoms as it is based on detecting antibodies within the body and is known to produce a false negative in 50% of tests. This also means that in Nicole’s case the CDC won’t officially recognize her disease as Lyme because it’s been too long for any antibodies to register. In turn, this means that treatment isn’t covered by our regular health care system so Nicole now has to figure this out (and pay for treatment) herself.

As every American (and now Nicole) will tell you treatment is expensive. She has been unable to work since the start of this year and has been paying between $500 and $1,000 per month for private doctor’s appointments and anti-biotic treatments. As you can imagine this financial piece has caused an added layer of stress on an already challenging situation. Her first round of treatment offered some promising improvements, although as her symptoms are still wreaking havoc on her body she has just begun a second round of treatment for 8 weeks. While we are hopeful that her current treatment will help her overcome this disease once and for all. Realistically, it will be a longer road with gradual steps to get back to work and full health.

With her birthday coming up we thought there could be no greater gift to give than our support in the form of a donation towards helping her fight this insane disease. We’re asking for your help to raise enough money to help cover her recent and ongoing medical bills and to make sure she is able to recover once and for all. Every little bit helps so please give what you can and ask others in your community to do the same.

If you want to learn more about Lyme or Nicole’s treatment please check out the links below.

Lyme Disease Org: https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/treatment/index.html

CDC’s Info Page on Lyme: https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/treatment/index.html

Tandem Clinic: https://www.tandemclinic.com/