Tupak Shakur once said, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, photographers are worth a million.”. I am gathering self-portraits of people suffering from Lyme Disease. No words...just a dollar amount of how much they have spent out of pocket on their disease so far. It is estimated that the average Lyme Disease patient spends $50,000 a year on treatment. In 20 years that patient will have spent $1,000,000. Sadly, many people I have met in my various Lyme groups have suffered this long.
Why am I doing this?
I want to show our donors, why their donation matters so much. For what we spent on a Starbucks Venti Macchiato, someone could pay an antibiotics co-pay. For what we pay for a pizza, someone could pay for a bottle of oregano essential oil, an oil that is showing promise in the treatment of chronic Lyme. For what we pay for our cell phone service, someone could pay for a doctor’s visit. Every dollar matters to someone with Lyme and they routinely forfeit the medications, the oils, and sadly, even their doctor’s visits when they money runs out.
What can you do?
If you suffer from Lyme, consider joining this project and send me a picture with no name, no location, just the dollar figure of what you have spent out of pocket so far on the treatment of your disease.
If you do not suffer with Lyme, you can help by sharing this post on your social media sites. My Facebook post is spreading across the country, into Canada, and is reaching into the UK.
You can donate. Your donation goes directly to someone who needs an extra $1,000 to pay for the copays, the essential oils, the doctor visits.
I did not expect so many people to reply to me that their out of pocket expense is $0 because they cannot afford to start treatment. That broke my heart and motivated me to educate those not in the Lyme Community as to why this disease is unlike any other. No Lyme Doctor takes insurance due to the CDC's restrictive definition and treatment of this disease. Lyme Disease receives a minuscule amount of funding for research and development compared to other diseases, and while all of our attention is on Covid-19, in just a few years, less than a decade, it is estimated that 1/10 of our population will be infected with Lyme Disease. This means if you don’t know someone with Lyme now, you will soon.
Join me in my work to carry the burden of Lyme Disease. Giving never felt so good.