TICKED OFF

TICKED OFF - Fight the Hidden Menace of Lyme Disease

Amy's Story

Amy has been acutely unwell since mid-2014 with severe and debilitating symptoms of Chronic Neurological Lyme Disease and it’s Co-Infections. Amy continued working full-time until the end of 2014 under much duress, not wanting this disease to take away her normal life or her income. By 2015 she had no choice but to stop work and instead focus on her health.

Amy has been diagnosed with Neurological Lyme Disease and several co-infections. Lyme disease is mainly a tick-borne disease that's infection has the ability to invade every tissue of the body. This means it can produce an extremely wide variety of symptoms and if left untreated, such as in Amy’s situation, can develop into a chronic and extremely disabling illness.

She has endured over two harrowing years of violent seizures, temporary paralysis, neurological disruption, and many other debilitating symptoms, and faces a long hard road ahead of her towards recovery. Some days her symptoms are so bad that that even everyday tasks such as walking, having a conversation or writing an email are impossible. Tasks that most of us take for granted.

Lyme Disease is not recognised as a disease by the Australian Government or by most of the Australian medical community. Therefore there is a huge lack of appropriate support and medical treatment available in Australia. (For more info on this, see www.lymedisease.org.au ).

In a quest to save Amy’s life and find appropriate treatment, Amy and her family made urgent decisions twice in the last two years to go overseas for medical treatment unavailable in Australia. In 2015, Amy spent 3 months in Germany, and early this year, Amy spent 2 and a half months in Switzerland.

The past few years have been incredibly hard for Amy and her family. Many times they have worried whether Amy would make it through this nightmare.

However, since returning from Switzerland in April this year, Amy remarkably is slowly improving. A positive response to the treatment in Switzerland has seen Amy improve in many areas. In many areas, there is still a long way to go, and in some areas there may never be any change due to the effects of suffering a chronic neurological illness untreated in Australia for so long.

Our fundraising began in April 2015 and money has been used in the following ways:

*A huge amount of pharmaceuticals, many not subsidised, many very costly. Since diagnosis in 2104 Amy has taken a large amount of daily medications to keep her body functioning.
*Doctor’s appointments - Lyme Literate doctors are very few in Australia and very costly.
*Medical and rehab equipment for the home. In particular, the renovation of a dedicated area for Amy’s medical and rehab equipment
*Disability equipment like the walker and wheelchair
*Specialist dietary requirements - to create an environment within the body where the bacteria does not thrive
*Two overseas medical trips totalling almost 6 months away at a cost of approximately $1000 AUD/ per day ( including accommodation, food, specialist medical clinic/ treatments) plus flights for Amy and her carer.

What now for Amy?

Amy is continuing treatments and medications set out in her medical treatment plan by her doctors in Switzerland. These daily medications/ injections/ IVs/ treatments all come at a cost. She would also greatly benefit from returning back to Switzerland in 6 months for follow up treatment, should finances permit.

Where is fundraising at now, July 2016?

All funds raised from April 2015 up until now have been used.
Funds raised from now on will go to repaying three very generous people who paid for Amy to go to Switzerland when neither Amy or Ticked Off had any money left, so that she could get urgent lifesaving help.
Funds will also go to supporting the costs of Amy’s continuing medical treatments.

Without a doubt, every single donation helps Amy continue to receive the treatment she needs, and helps lessen the very real financial strain this has put on Amy and her family.

Please click the donate now link to make your contribution. We thank you for your generosity.