Athena's Medical Fund

My daughter, Athena McDowell Kittrell is the mother of 3 wonderful little girls ages 9, 6 and 4 and wife to an amazing husband, Eric.  Athena was diagnosed with a rare nerve disease in 2003 called Trigeminal Neuralgia.  Trigeminal Neuralgia is an intense almost unbearable pain from inflammation in the nerve and there is no cure.  Wikipedia says " It has been described as among the most painful conditions known."  In 2004 Athena went for a jog with her new husband and felt a pop in her left leg.  This turned out to be another rare condition called May-Thurner syndrome.  May-Thurner syndrome is where your vein that brings the blood out of your left leg and back to your heart is being smashed by an artery and the blood can't get out of your leg properly.  Athena had surgery twice in 2005 to place stents in the compressed vein and it helped a lot but we knew something still wasn't right.  
Last year things got really bad with Athena's entire left side of her body.  She went back to the doctor who specializes in May-Thurner syndrome.  He found that the blood flow being messed up for so long had caused Athena to develop Pelvic Congestion Syndrome too.  The doctor,  not being as familiar with Pelvic Congestion, put metal coils in her Ovarian vein which had greatly enlarged.  The procedure set Athena's body into severe dysautonomia.  Dysautonomia is damage to your vagus nerve that runs all of your automatic functions like breathing, heart rate and blood pressure (all that important stuff!).   She was no longer able to lay down flat due to the messed up pressure in her vascular system.  If she laid down flat her BP and heart rate dropped to dangerous levels.   The Neuralgia started spreading to other nerves in her head too.  After months of suffering it was found that she also had something called Nutcracker Syndrome which is another compression (smashed) vein but this time it was in her left kidney.  There are not many doctors in the country who treat this condition but Athena found one in Seattle and he put a stent in that vein.  The surgery was extremly painful but some of the symptoms started getting better.  Then the symptoms slowly started getting worse again though and once the pain was unbearable Athena went back to that doctor.  He told her the stent was misplaced and had actually slipped into her kidney.  She also had developed a large blood clot in the vein.  
  After 3 surgeries last year, the coil placement,  a partial hysterectomy(to remove the enlarged veins around the uterus) and to try and repair some of the many damaged veins in her adbomen the medical bills are pilled high!  
  Athena is now scheduled at the Mayo Clinic for what we hope will be the miracle surgery!  Surgery to repair the kidney vein and the other veins that have reopened or re-enlarged due to the clot in the kidney vein is scheduled for Dec the 2nd.  
  Travel and surgery expenses will be in the thousands! The money raised from this campaign will be used to help with all the medical bills and travel to and from the Mayo Clinic. 
This family has stuggled with Athena's medical conditions for over 10 years and it would mean so much to me and them to receive your help!