The Whole Story (by Jessica's Mom)
It’s hard to begin to describe Jessica’s situation
today, when so much of her past has been both directly and indirectly
tied to what is happening now.
In 1992, Jessica was 19 years old.
She was a graduate of
Hot Springs High School
and a student in the Nursing Program at the local community college.
She also worked full time as a Certified Nursing Aide at Sierra
Vista Nursing Home.
She noticed a swollen gland on her throat on a Friday night, had that
gland removed on the next Wednesday and by Friday of the same week she
had received a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Cancer.
To make a long story short and
to the point, she was soon devastated financially, physically and
emotionally just as anybody would have been.
With the help of her teachers, friends,
and family, she recovered.
She had a wrecked credit history, owed thousands in medical bills, but,
had her health, a nursing degree, and her future was bright.
In the next ten years she married her high school sweetheart,
became a mother of two beautiful little boys, and enjoyed a successful
career in geriatric health care.
Jessica worked in nursing homes for
several reasons. The most
obvious reason was because most of the diseases of the elderly are due
to aging and are not contagious. Her
immune system was very compromised by her bout with cancer.
Even having children was a risk for her, because any childhood
illness could put her life in danger.
So it make sense that she should not continue in the field of
nursing any longer than it would take her to get a degree is another
field. She put her
hopes of a home on the back burner until she could get a bachelor’s
degree in marketing and management.
Almost 10 years to the day, she realized that dream and was bound
to graduate in May of 2002.
About April she started to have strange nervous tremors in her
extremities and on the night before the college graduation ceremonies
she collapsed loosing use of her legs and arms.
Over a period of 6 months, it was
discovered that she had a rare disease, known as Chronic Inflammatory
Demyelinating Polyneuropathy or CIDP.
Only about 40 cases are diagnosed each year worldwide.
It is not a cancer but the fact that she has a compromised immune
system has made it particularly deadly.
For the last 5 years or so she has been disabled to varying
degrees. She must
take large doses of immunosuppressant drugs, undergo plasmapheresis
weekly and intravenous immunoglobulin therapy and chemotherapy.
She has developed a blood clotting disorder that has further
complicated her treatment and is now threatening her life.
There is no known cure, but a research
program using stem cells, harvested from the patients own blood, is in
progress through Northwestern University in Chicago, IL.
Jessica has been accepted as one of the 10 individuals to
participate. However,
the program is not funded by the government.
She must raise $50,000 to cover the 20% costs not covered by
Medicare and living expenses while she stays in
Chicago
for four months to receive the care. Seven
of those participants have completed their regiment of treatment and
have largely experienced full remission with minimal complications.
Jessica has ever possibility of a full recovery
with your help. Please
consider contributing today.
She will not be allowed to enter the program without the money
“up-front”.