In January my wife had an ischemic stroke due to a PFO in her heart.  A PFO is a hole that everyone is born with and supplies oxygen to you in utero. The hole is supposed to close after birth,. However in 25% of individuals it does not. 99% of the time, the individual with the PFO will never know about it as it won’t cause any issues. Stroke is a serious consequence of a PFO and what happened to my wife in January. Imaging also showed white matter lesions on my wifes brain that are consistent with demyilinating disease. These are two seperate things she has going on. In March my wife was admitted to the hospital for 5 days and I had to take unpaid FMLA to care for our three young children. While she was there, one neurologist explained that the stroke woke up demyilinating disease. The  symptoms she has been experiencing since the stroke occurred and from the demyilinating disease are consistent with chronic Lyme disease that she has had since 2010. Until the stroke took place, she has had very minimal symptoms of Lyme disease since 2013, after seeing an amazing doctor in NY that helped her be well for 13 years. She has to go to NY to see her doctor there that we have to pay out of pocket for. Insurance does not cover Lyme disease past initial treatment and not in chronic stages. It wouldn’t matter which doctor she went to see, they would not cover the costs. Between all this and travel to and from NY with our 3 children gets costly. My wife is in graduate school to be a therapist and has pushed this semester (which started mid-January) pushing through to finishing her practicum hours this week and taking three classes despite all she has endured with her health. She is also the main caregiver for our three small children, two of which are in school during the day and we have a 2 year old that cares for. I am our sole income provider and things are already pretty tight. My wife needs the care she gets in NY as she needs to be able to care for our kids, and her medical issues are creating dangerous issues with her heart and her brain. We would not be putting this out there if it was not serious and it was not our last resort. We have a big chunk of our tax money that we have using for her care which is running out quickly.  Any little bit will help and we would so appreciate it. Even sharing would be a tremendous help, if that’s all you can do! Thank you!