Support Evangeline's Battle Against Lyme Disease

This is my daughter Evangeline. She is an amazing, intelligent 17 year old. She embodies a strong spirit and a kindness in her heart that everyone who knows her feels. She is creative and artistic. She has dreams of becoming an interior designer when she graduates from high school next year. But unfortunately, her future plans are currently on hold. As her friends and classmates are putting energy into touring colleges and selecting schools, she is using all of her energy to get well and I am using every penny to afford treatment. My daughter is fighting for her health with bravery and determination through really hard days and rough sleepless nights.

You wouldn't know it from this picture, or even if you saw her in person in the hall at school, that she is currently fighting a daily battle with a debilitating illness. Lyme disease.

Hi, I’m Evangeline’s mom, Suzanne. I very much appreciate the time you are taking to learn about my daughter's sickness and my very personal struggle to afford her treatment. As a single parent I work really hard to ensure my children have what they need and that they also thrive. I have reached a place where I simply cannot afford her medical care which will continue through at least the next 12 months. With your financial help Evangeline will be able to continue her treatment (medication, blood work, doctor appointments, supplements etc) to have the best chance at beating this so that she can get back to being a 17 year old with big plans!

Time for a little back story: Evangeline was recently diagnosed, again, with Lyme Disease and two co-infections. She tested positive for Babesia microti along with Bartonella henselae. Babesia is a malaria-like parasite that infects red blood cells. A co infection is a bacteria or virus that many ticks carry (aside from lyme) and can transmit with a single bite. Co-infections with Lyme disease are complicated to address and overcome. When they are not diagnosed and treated in the early stages, the bacteria settle into the organs of the body which makes diagnosis, treatment and recovery more difficult.

Evangeline's current fight with lyme unfortunately isn't new. Her battle began back in 2011 when she was a 4 year old cutie pie running around barefoot in the backyard. One night, as I tucked her into bed and swept her hair behind her ear, I felt a bump. There was a tick, the size of the tip of a pencil behind her ear. Fast forward to six months later Evangeline was very sick.

Unfortunately, that little tick passed a large load of bacteria (Babesia and lyme) that within 6 month’s time had affected not only her brain but her entire body. She, being an avid talker, was having trouble with word recall and speaking coherent sentences. She had trouble walking due to joint pain, stomach aches, exhaustion, headaches, neck pain so severe it hurt to breath, night sweats, strep throat etc. She was treated for her Lyme for the following 2 years with a top Dr in the US with great success. Evangeline was so brave and resilient even with missing most of her kindergarten and first grade. I remember her having to crawl around the house most days with knee pads on due to her leg pain. She would carry her beanie babies in her teeth as she crawled to be able to get from place to place. But, two years later she was well again, symptoms were non-existent and she was back to her vibrant silly self!

Current situation: Fast forward to 2022, her sophomore year of high school. Evangeline began to develop the same lyme symptoms again (severe brain fog, extreme exhaustion, joint pain, body aches, a low immune system, anemia, monthly strep throat infections, feeling feverish without having a fever, a feeling of burning inside her body, blurry vision and an overall feeling of being sick. She missed a lot of school and social events.

She was treated for her symptoms by her lyme Dr, which helped get her to feeling ok but it didn’t truly address the core issue because I could not afford the cost of the testing needed to definitively know if it was the babesia again. She was well enough to get through the school year with supplemental home instruction in place.

This past November 2023, the start of her junior year, all of her symptoms flared again and they continue to. Evangeline is worried that she won't recover. She is trying to be hopeful that she will one day live a full healthy life. She has amazing besties that keep her spirits up and a family that supports her and surrounds her with love though the many days when she doesn’t have the energy to even lift her head off the pillow, let alone attend school and complete school work.

She returned to her lyme specialist and this time I was able to borrow the $2,000 needed to have the recommended testing done from a proven independent lab. After the other labs used came back without answers there was no other choice.

She tested positive for a current infection of epstein barr virus along with Lyme; Babesia microti and Bartonella henselae. Knowing the diagnosis was a step in the right direction. Now, on to treatment and the path to wellness!

Evangeline is currently entering her 4th week of treatment. She is on a medication that targets the coinfections and she says that she is starting to feel a little more alive. However, the mediation she is taking and will need for the next 12 months is not covered by insurance. The out-of-pocket cost is $250 for 13 pills, which lasts her 6 weeks.

Now to the ask: Lyme specialists don’t take insurance. That’s because they can’t evaluate and treat these complex patients in the 10 min time slots that insurance allows. Believe me, we have gone to doctors through insurance and none of them were able to give us answers for Evangeline. Treatment is also very costly. For Evangeline, as I said above, her medication is not covered. I have to pay 100% out of pocket.

Just to give you a quick overview of the estimated cost breakdown of treatment for the next 12 months:

• $1,916 Medication

• $4,000 Specialist Dr appointments

• $6,240 Blood work

• $3,600 Supplements and herbals

Estimated total for the next year is $15,756

All of the donations received will be used to fund Evangeline’s treatment and recovery over the next 12 months. If we can get enough donations to get her through the first year, she should be back on her feet and ready for college!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, it has been a long journey.

I am a firm believer in community support. I am humbly reaching out to you our community asking for any help you can offer us in my daughters fight to get her health back.

On behalf of Evangeline and our family we thank you for your support.

And if you want to know more about Lyme, www.lymedisease.org is a reliable place to start learning.