My mentor and friend, Bridget, recently suffered catastrophic vision loss. She’s been unable to work for the last four months. We’re setting up a GiveSendGo account to help her pay her bills while she works on recovering her vision in the next 6 to 8 months.

To know more a little more about Bridget, please read on.

Most of Bridget's early life came with lots of personal struggles and health struggles. The most significant one start with the most joyful stage of her life: her pregnancy with her one and only daughter in 1993. It started with a case of pneumonia in the first trimester that landed her in the hospital for over two weeks. Afterwords, she was deemed to have gestational asthma. The pregnancy ended with an emergency C-section, in which her daughter June‘s heart stopped and they did not wish to wait for the anesthesiologist in order to save June‘s life. Thus, the c-section was performed with no anesthesia. Bridget will be the first to tell you that despite the pain of that event, she would certainly do it all again and that June was absolutely worth it.

After the birth, the asthma did not go away as predicted. It continued to worsen to the point where a two-year-old June would sometimes imitate her mom by stopping suddenly, leaning over, grabbing her knees, and gasping for breath. Bridget's inability to breathe and living from nebulizer treatment to nebulizer treatment and other drugs left her unable to work, struggling to care for their young daughter while the love of her life, Dale worked three jobs and almost never saw them, in their attempt to keep up with all the medical bills. Unfortunately, it finally culminated in a bankruptcy and the loss of their home.

Thanks to her lovely aunt Maryann, she was finally referred to a pulmonologist who was able to help her get her asthma under control and they began to get their life back together. They were able to purchase a home on a few acres of land that had been in the family for many years... a place where Bridget had always felt like home and often felt homesick for. She and Dale both felt like they were now living in heaven and life was good for a couple of years.

Then in the fall of 1997, Bridget got the ultimate health struggle of her life: she was diagnosed with idiopathic systemic necrotizing vasculitis (a fancy medical way of saying that her blood vessels and capillaries were bursting and instead of healing, they were rotting away for unknown reasons). All of the specialist agreed that chemotherapy was her only option and even with chemo she was looking at three, maybe six, months of life and that was it. Unwilling to submit to the fatal diagnosis, Bridget decided she had nothing left to lose. With the support of her husband and family, she chose alternative medicine. Despite going to Catholic school as a child, going to church regularly, and reading the Bible, she was shocked to find that what she’d been reading in the Bible for so many years was actually helpful herbs like hyssop and thyme, and essential oils like frankincense and myrrh, actually had health value!

Through learning and using alternative medicine, she recovered her health and survived the fatal diagnosis. Others heard of her success and began asking her for help with their health, which led her going to school to become a naturopath and starting a 20-year career of teaching others how to take care of themselves through use of herbs, foods, and education and understanding of the human body, mind, and spirit.

The vasculitis had done some pretty significant damage to the vascular system in her eyes that has remained for the last 27 years. She'd been hearing for all these years about how the vascular system in her eyes looked terrible and they didn’t know how she could see, yet she can (there was some little warped vision in her left eye, but that was the extent of the noticeable damage in her sight). Then in 2020, she had gotten CoVID. After that, suddenly the weird little warped vision in her left eye began to move to the center, and she started to notice some odd changes with her ability to see. Being the CoVID Era, it took over a year and a half to get into an ophthalmologist to analyze the situation. It was deemed to have changes in the old scar tissue, and that there was an increased inflammation. She was referred to a retinologist who initially wanted to use an injection, but the drug comes with a risk of vasculitis. Given her history, this seemed like a particularly risky plan. Instead, they opted for a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory eyedrop and see where it went, and of course Bridget was using everything she knew from the holistic side. After a few months, they deemed it to be slightly better. She was encouraged at that point!

Then she woke up from a nap one day in late September to find she had no vision. Since it was a Saturday evening and the specialist's office simply stated "Go to the ER if you have a problem". The emergency room said they didn’t know how to deal with it either. So her daughter June (who followed in her footsteps of naturopathy) took a look at her, readjusted everything they were doing, and was able to recover some blurry vision by Monday morning. At which point, Bridget got an emergency appointment with the local retinal specialist. They said there was new cell growth on the old scar tissue and it was putting pressure on the optic nerve, and that the new little vascular cells within it were leaking blood everywhere. Laser surgery was needed immediately. This was expected to recover her vision within a matter of months. Unfortunately, laser surgery did not go as planned. In a matter of hours after the surgery, most of her vision was gone. What little vision she did have was a white haze with blurry kaleidoscope-type vision in what sight was left, followed by painful light sensitivity. At this point, she was told she needed anti-inflammatory injections every two weeks which she has been doing and that she would be better within three months. It’s now been four months and starting into month number five with little to no change.

With extra genetic testing, it was revealed that the source of all Bridget's health issues (past and present) stem from complicated rare inflammatory and vascular genetics, which is making recovery difficult and challenging as she gets older. Most retinal specialists don't understand enough about vascular conditions, so Bridget is now having to travel 4 hours away to see a specialist who understands these conditions.

In the meantime, she’s been unable to return to work at full compacity since she lost her vision, which is taking a significant toll on her finances and business. The bank accounts are nearly empty. The credit cards are nearly maxed out as they pay for all the doctors' visits and basics like mortgages, utilities, and other daily living expenses. June is doing her best to be there for all of Bridget's clients, but she can only do so much and any money made isn't enough to keep up with the overwhelming pile of bills at home. She’s also heartbroken that she can't see all her wonderful clients. She’s praying to get back to that as soon as possible. At this point, her biggest fear is that, once again, her health is going to bankrupt her family, forcing them to close the doors to the business and leave them homeless.

For someone who's spent well over 20 years dedicating her time and heart to helping others take care of their health and give people back their lives, we would very much like to return the gesture and take this particular burden off of Bridget's shoulders. So we are asking for a contribution of $30,000 to help Bridget and her family cover medical expenses and any outstanding bills. And of course, any and all prayers are greatly welcomed and appreciated.

Thank you.