Sams Family & Friends - Activate!!!
Donation protected
#HelpMyDearHearAgain
#Ménière’sDiseaseSucks
Our dear Melissa Sams has been affected by Bilateral Ménière’s disease for over 3 years now. The journey has been very overwhelming and has been affecting her exponentially painful and aggressive the past few months. After losing 16lbs in 3 weeks, she underwent an emergency mastoidectomy and endo-lymphatic sac decompression surgery on Nov 7th, the final drastic attempt to give her relief from the latest 14 day stretch of debilitating vertigo. The next morning she woke up with NO Vertigo, but is now 100% deaf in both ears.
In the past few years, Melissa has been to 6 specialists in 2 states and our own West Florida, Sacred Heart, Baptist, and Shands (in Gainesville) hospitals. They have no cause, they have no cure. They can only attempt to treat symptoms as they come, which use to change monthly, and now change weekly. This has been a long and challenging journey for the Sams. They have tried drastic diet changes, homeopathic options, chiropractic, several types of hearing aids, steroids, oils, gadgets, antibodies, viruses, drops, Many shots, ear surgery, and mounds of labs and tests.
Most know that Melissa and Chris are ALWAYS on the go helping others. Normally they have been able to juggle a happy life between work, running a business, paying for a son in college, parenting 2 teenage daughters, being a Scoutmaster of Boy Scouts, coaching a City girls volleyball team, and caring for a mother with dementia, and father Papa Sams with stage 4 lung cancer that has recently spread to his liver with no options for surgical removal and currently being treated for pneumonia.
The donation amount requested will help towards their “max out of pocket” insurance fees for the hopeful bi-cochlear implants, medical debt, travel expenses, lodging, non covered meds, home care, personal-home-work-vehicle hearing aid devices to keep her safe, and bi monthly Doc visits and Co pays in to the next year. It will help Chris not to have to take on a second job for now (delivering pizza or handyman jobs, as he says :-) to make ends meet. If he wishes, we want him to be able to continue his level of service in Scouts and to others, be there for his sweet wife and kids, and to spend as much time as he can with Papa Sams. It will allow Melissa to heal and limit their current, and some future financial stresses. Chris is going to need her soon.
What Now?
Normally, one would wait to fully heal after her last surgery. Her medical team agrees, the more they wait, the chance of not being able to pass the implant electrodes through successfully, drastically increase. There are no guarantees, and it could take up to 6 months to find out her new normal. The hopeful bi-cochlear implant surgery date is Dec 13th. The first attempt to start to turn them on, at the end of January.
Losing her hearing, spatial awareness, balance, with a constant lull of dizziness and nausea has been very overwhelming and has induced anxiety and a lot of stress issues. She has been practicing reading lips for 2 years. She is 2 weeks out of the last surgery, still no vertigo, still no hearing. Hurting at home and alone, was unbearable. Though in pain and scared, she chose to return back to work in hopes to gain some sort of normalcy and to keep her family moving forward.
Because of the blessings and financial aid of others, Chris has started the long process of setting up gadgets around the house and at work to help Melissa communicate and not feel so isolated. They are massively stretched financially and still currently fighting with insurance to get an approval of a Bilateral Cochlear implant. Because the amount of damage to her ears is significant and progressing, they are on a time clock.
Melissa’s Ménière’s disease has 3 weapons:
1) Fullness, tinnitus, Massive accelerating ear pain that doesn’t go away, even with the various concoctions of pain pills that have been subscribed over the past 3 years. She describes it as a syringe needle being shoved in her eardrums followed by injecting so much fluid that she feels the pressure trying to bust through. This pain is usually triggered by stress, weather changes in pressure, and too much audible or visual stimulus.
2) After a couple days of the pain, she experienced the next level of hearing loss. At first, they said it was only going to be one ear affected and she might lose her hearing in five years or so in that ear. That was a couple years ago. Now her left ear is completely non-functioning, and last month, her right ear had only 30% hearing functionality remaining. Everything has progressed massively faster than expected. After the last surgery on Nov 7th, she lost 100% of the remaining hearing she had. She can’t even hear her own voice in her head, or her kids, her family, her friends, and co-workers, or even the music to dance with her husband.
3) And the worst, Bilateral vestibular nerve damage - Meaning Massive vertigo causing a constant state of imbalance, dizziness, and nausea. This use to hit once or twice a month for a couple of hours. It then progressed to 5 to 12 times a day. Once she lost 16 lbs in 3 weeks and had the vertigo for 14 days straight with ZERO relief, she succumbed to try one last option in hopes to rid the vertigo, knowing that the surgery had a high risk of permanent hearing loss.
Thank you for your support
For generations, the Sams have always lived to give more than they take. Always helping the others in community during times of need. In doing so, they say it feeds their soul and keeps them going to make the world a better place. Thank you for considering to help them in their time of need.
#Ménière’sDiseaseSucks
Our dear Melissa Sams has been affected by Bilateral Ménière’s disease for over 3 years now. The journey has been very overwhelming and has been affecting her exponentially painful and aggressive the past few months. After losing 16lbs in 3 weeks, she underwent an emergency mastoidectomy and endo-lymphatic sac decompression surgery on Nov 7th, the final drastic attempt to give her relief from the latest 14 day stretch of debilitating vertigo. The next morning she woke up with NO Vertigo, but is now 100% deaf in both ears.
In the past few years, Melissa has been to 6 specialists in 2 states and our own West Florida, Sacred Heart, Baptist, and Shands (in Gainesville) hospitals. They have no cause, they have no cure. They can only attempt to treat symptoms as they come, which use to change monthly, and now change weekly. This has been a long and challenging journey for the Sams. They have tried drastic diet changes, homeopathic options, chiropractic, several types of hearing aids, steroids, oils, gadgets, antibodies, viruses, drops, Many shots, ear surgery, and mounds of labs and tests.
Most know that Melissa and Chris are ALWAYS on the go helping others. Normally they have been able to juggle a happy life between work, running a business, paying for a son in college, parenting 2 teenage daughters, being a Scoutmaster of Boy Scouts, coaching a City girls volleyball team, and caring for a mother with dementia, and father Papa Sams with stage 4 lung cancer that has recently spread to his liver with no options for surgical removal and currently being treated for pneumonia.
The donation amount requested will help towards their “max out of pocket” insurance fees for the hopeful bi-cochlear implants, medical debt, travel expenses, lodging, non covered meds, home care, personal-home-work-vehicle hearing aid devices to keep her safe, and bi monthly Doc visits and Co pays in to the next year. It will help Chris not to have to take on a second job for now (delivering pizza or handyman jobs, as he says :-) to make ends meet. If he wishes, we want him to be able to continue his level of service in Scouts and to others, be there for his sweet wife and kids, and to spend as much time as he can with Papa Sams. It will allow Melissa to heal and limit their current, and some future financial stresses. Chris is going to need her soon.
What Now?
Normally, one would wait to fully heal after her last surgery. Her medical team agrees, the more they wait, the chance of not being able to pass the implant electrodes through successfully, drastically increase. There are no guarantees, and it could take up to 6 months to find out her new normal. The hopeful bi-cochlear implant surgery date is Dec 13th. The first attempt to start to turn them on, at the end of January.
Losing her hearing, spatial awareness, balance, with a constant lull of dizziness and nausea has been very overwhelming and has induced anxiety and a lot of stress issues. She has been practicing reading lips for 2 years. She is 2 weeks out of the last surgery, still no vertigo, still no hearing. Hurting at home and alone, was unbearable. Though in pain and scared, she chose to return back to work in hopes to gain some sort of normalcy and to keep her family moving forward.
Because of the blessings and financial aid of others, Chris has started the long process of setting up gadgets around the house and at work to help Melissa communicate and not feel so isolated. They are massively stretched financially and still currently fighting with insurance to get an approval of a Bilateral Cochlear implant. Because the amount of damage to her ears is significant and progressing, they are on a time clock.
Melissa’s Ménière’s disease has 3 weapons:
1) Fullness, tinnitus, Massive accelerating ear pain that doesn’t go away, even with the various concoctions of pain pills that have been subscribed over the past 3 years. She describes it as a syringe needle being shoved in her eardrums followed by injecting so much fluid that she feels the pressure trying to bust through. This pain is usually triggered by stress, weather changes in pressure, and too much audible or visual stimulus.
2) After a couple days of the pain, she experienced the next level of hearing loss. At first, they said it was only going to be one ear affected and she might lose her hearing in five years or so in that ear. That was a couple years ago. Now her left ear is completely non-functioning, and last month, her right ear had only 30% hearing functionality remaining. Everything has progressed massively faster than expected. After the last surgery on Nov 7th, she lost 100% of the remaining hearing she had. She can’t even hear her own voice in her head, or her kids, her family, her friends, and co-workers, or even the music to dance with her husband.
3) And the worst, Bilateral vestibular nerve damage - Meaning Massive vertigo causing a constant state of imbalance, dizziness, and nausea. This use to hit once or twice a month for a couple of hours. It then progressed to 5 to 12 times a day. Once she lost 16 lbs in 3 weeks and had the vertigo for 14 days straight with ZERO relief, she succumbed to try one last option in hopes to rid the vertigo, knowing that the surgery had a high risk of permanent hearing loss.
Thank you for your support
For generations, the Sams have always lived to give more than they take. Always helping the others in community during times of need. In doing so, they say it feeds their soul and keeps them going to make the world a better place. Thank you for considering to help them in their time of need.
Fundraising team: Team Sams (2)
Stephanie White
Organizer
Pensacola, FL
Christopher Sams
Beneficiary
Andy Waltrip
Team member