If you are reading this, Welcome! This is our family journal following Christina's current health journey, and reflecting on past health challenges that continue to impact her daily life. The main purpose of this journal is to keep everyone informed of all things health and allow people to pray with us, pray beside us, and believe in a breakthrough only God can do!
It's hard to imagine it is finally 2024. Last year felt like multiple years packed into one. Our family has seen many victories and many setbacks throughout the past year. We always aim to end the year better than we started, unfortunately, we are met with another blow to Christina’s health. For those who are not up to speed, we will recap. Christina has fought for her health for years battling multiple autoimmune diseases that affected every organ. She hasn't been able to even drive for 10 years. She was an intermission of some of these diseases due to how well she eats right and researches natural as well as conventional medicine. She also has a life-threatening genetic immune deficiency that requires lifelong treatment as she can't fight off even the simplest colds. She was doing considerably well considering everything she had wrong until COVID-19. In total Christina has gotten COVID 4x and each time arteries have been dissected causing life-threatening strokes. We didn't even know this was possible. In Jan 2022 she had her left internal carotid artery and right vertebral artery dissected within one week of each other after a 3-week fight with COVID-19. They both became completely occluded. There was nothing the doctors could do. She was hospitalized 3 separate times with strokes just in that Jan and Feb as well as at Johns Hopkins. In May she got covid and sepsis and fought to survive then as she is allergic now to most antibiotics. She barely survived and still was weak going into Oct 2022 when she got flu and COVID-19 for her birthday present. a few weeks later right on time, She had one final dissection. We knew what was happening as her left side went completely numb she asked me to throw her in the shower as we know you don't get one. All the other times the paralysis took a while this time it was a lot faster and she had aphasia. She was still able to tell the nurse and doctor at the hospitals she needed a catheter as it affected her bladder. They went to admit her but Christina knew she needed more care than sitting around and watching her. As the neurosurgeon we called said she needed to get Nightingale over to Chesapeake Neuro suite our anxiety grew. No one knew how she was able to talk but at this point, she wasn't able to move at all. They found ground transport which was safer and as I drove to the hospital following the ambulance the neurosurgeon called me and told me how serious it was. They called in a chaplain for me as she was whisked off to surgery. He would sit with me for 3 hours. As the neurosurgeon did an angiogram and was about to place a stent he gave her aspirin. She immediately started having an allergic reaction. There was only a 5% opening and she needed the stent to keep blood flowing as her other arteries were still stenosed from the other dissections. They had to abort surgery and the mood went from bad to worse. She had multiple strokes following this a few days later died in my arms. She spent the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 in the hospital going through hell, with a lot of things Ill explain more later getting diagnosed with diabetes and several other problems from the medications needed to save her life.
In Jan 2023, she was able to be discharged home but she was still bedridden and not able to barely move her left side still let alone do anything. At the end of the month, we went to Hopkins to see the FMD vascular doctor who didn't have any helpful info we didn't already know but because they found a cyst in her pancreas that's been growing she was sent to the pancreas clinic there. In February Christina was admitted for severe GI bleed and they found and removed 20+ pre-cancerous polyps from her colon and stomach. This made her very anemic and she required multiple blood transfusions and a week-long stay. In Feb and March, she saw the pancreas clinic at Hopkins and they said we needed to continue to watch the pancreas. It is believed to be an IPMN which can be precancerous but it's a very serious surgery so we will continue to watch it grow. She then sent her to the genetic colon cancer doctor at Hopkins thinking she must have this rare disease mutation that causes large numbers of cancerous polyps as she was only 38 and has had the last 4 colonoscopies and endo show 3ish polyps even before this. In June she required 3 more transfusions.
In Aug we went back to Hopkins and saw the genetics dr. He was ok but unless you have the mutation he doesn't do anything and her saliva test didn't show the mutation. Her Gastro Doctor went back in and found 4 more polyps which he was hoping was the cause for her numbers that kept dropping.. Christina continued to experience pain in her abdomen and she was still bleeding from somewhere. She started having symptoms of carcinoid syndrome flushing, pain etc. Lab tests came back showing certain labs that are high in this condition. Her labs dropped to critical and she needed 3 more transfusions. So then The GI ordered a Pill cam because the colon and endoscopy can only go so far. The pill cam is swallowed and takes pictures of your entire digestive tract through the small intestines where they can't see. This revealed that Christina has a large polypoid lesion in her small bowel. The Doctor believes it could be a neuroendocrine tumor or a carcinoid adenocarcinoma tumor. Either way, it means cancer and needs to come out ASAP. Polyps are not supposed to be anywhere in the small bowel, and if you do it's very rare and the cancer rate is high. The scary part is we do not know how long it has been there. The other scary part is the only way to get to it is by a procedure called a Double Baloon. The other scary part is only 5 facilities provide this type of procedure and none of them are in the state of Va. Unfortunately, the closest is Duke University in North Carolina.
We have spent the last 2 months trying to get the referrals together and waiting to hear back from Duke. we finally have an End of November we finally got an appointment and a surgery date. This requires many multi-day trips to Duke to meet with the Dr and then meet with the Anesthesia. At the end of the month, we will meet on the 18th with the Surgeon and Anesthesia; and then on Jan 22nd for the procedure. This requires going early and doing the prep for surgery and recovery because Christina is on blood thinners and making sure she does not have complications. This is if they can't get her in any sooner. If there are cancellations they will move her up sooner.
As one can imagine this can have a financial toll on the family. The cost of this trip isn't easy and we are also currently down to one vehicle because the starter in the CRV went bad. This is where you come in. If you want to help us do a fundraiser, it would be very appreciated! Christina is not in a position to run any. We still have a lot of products we make and sell. I do all the pressing. If you still need or want to order we will have our website at the bottom. I know it is right after Christmas making time and money tight. If you are willing or able to bless us to help with the financial hardship of the trips whether it be a gas card or visa gift card towards a hotel or Airbnb we would feel very blessed. This medical journey has not been easy, but God has been there every step of the way guiding us, protecting us, and blessing those who have blessed us in return. We love and appreciate everyone who stands by us. Until next time! We also have started a go fund me but if you want to donate where no fees are taken we have ; venmo, cashapp, and zelle
It has been a while since we did an update on Christinas’ health and we wanted to catch everyone up with everything going on. Next Sunday we are heading to UVA to see the breast surgeon. This is about 3-4 hrs from here. Christina had a breast MRI in February that revealed a mass that the breast radiologist said needed a biopsy/lumpectomy due to it being a birad4 and posterior. The interventionist at the local breast center refused to do the biopsy/lumpectomy because of her history and the high risk of bleeding. They then referred her to the breast surgeon with Sentara saying she needed to have it done excisionally which is a hospital admission. She wouldn't do it either because of the blood thinners and not feeling comfortable with her neurovascular surgeon's suggestions. Sentara decided to pass it over to Chesapeake Regional Hospital where her Neurovascular surgeon has privileges and to see the breast surgeon there.
After a month of waiting we got into the surgeon at Chesapeake. She said they would look into admitting her and coordinating with all the departments needed to do an MRI localization wire and then a surgical excision/lumpectomy. This was almost 4 weeks ago and they haven't responded since. Christina felt strongly she was meant to contact UVA and after reviewing all her records they set her up with the breast surgeon. We will be going in one week for the consultation and probably some repeat testing as her testing was over 2 months ago now when they said she needed a biopsy. We are praying due to her losing weight maybe it will be more easily reachable. Christina has been adamant about giving this all to God and letting him truly guide us to the right doctor. Due to both her carotid arteries still being significantly stenosed (80% right ICA and 40% in left ICA) we want someone who is experienced as she is at high risk for another stroke. She will be seeing Shayna L Showalter, MD who
has a comprehensive approach. We feel good about UVA because of how comprehensive and experienced they are. They are the only "comprehensive cancer center" in the state.
We ask for prayers or provision! We know everyone is struggling but if you want to support us financially by ordering something from us or donations since it's so last minute we would greatly appreciate it. We will need to stay several days there and again mobility/kitchen food needs to limit our stay to select more expensive options. So we will be going up on Sunday and leaving on Wednesday. Thank you for your continued support. All of these trips to Duke, Hopkins, and UVA has been rough. We thank each of you! We cant come up with her treatment plan until we know what we are dealing with.
If you want to help us we have Zelle, Venmo, Cashapp, etc. Thank you for all your love and support over the past few years we truly know Christina would not be alive today without your support by prayers or things purchased or donations or buying things we make. We really can't thank you enough. We know Duke Dr was terrible but that experience did show us that she can't go off the blood thinners right now and so maybe that was to show us that for more serious surgery coming up she has to stay on the blood thinners.
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