Go Fund Me Donors

To the Earth Angels Who Got Me to Mexico

Some thank-yous are so big that it takes years to find the words. This is one of them. I've carried this gratitude quietly in my heart for a long time, and today I finally want to say it out loud, to every single one of you.

There was a season of my life when I was fighting for it.

For more than ten years, I had been searching for answers—specialist after specialist, test after test—while something I couldn't name kept taking pieces of me. It came in waves. A strange, creeping paralysis. Fatigue that no amount of rest could touch. And then, most frightening of all, my words began to disappear. I would lose my ability to speak English. My breathing would tighten. Even my vision would blur and fade. There were nights I was genuinely afraid I wouldn't see the morning.

Then, in Mexico, in a single day, a doctor found what a decade of searching hadn't: a hiatal hernia that had been quietly wreaking havoc inside me for years. They also suspected Lyme disease. But before I could be strong enough to fight the Lyme, I needed surgery to repair the hernia first.

And here was the impossible part—there wasn't time. Not time to wait for insurance authorizations, referrals, and approvals; the slow machinery that would have kept me safe on paper while I ran out of time in real life. I was fading fast. I needed to get on a plane, and I needed to go now.

So I went, with almost nothing.

I left with the clothes on my back. My trench coat. My flat-soled boots. My Passport and Driver's license in one pocket, and two little bottles of essential oil - lavender and melissa oil that I held onto like anchors, breathing them in, adding them to my water, and steadying myself every time the fear rose up. That, and faith—the stubborn, tearful kind of faith that answers were waiting for me, and that somehow I would make it there.

What I did not have was the money to make it happen.

That's where you came in.

I still can hardly believe what happened next. Friends. Family. People I had never even met. Some of you gave twenty dollars you probably needed for something else. Some of you gave far more than I ever could have asked. Some of you left no name at all—just a quiet, anonymous gift and a prayer. And the messages poured in: praying for you… hang in there… you've got this, girl. You will never fully know what those words did for me in the middle of the hardest fight of my life.

Because of you, I made it onto that plane. Because of you, I reached the doctors I trusted. Because of you, I had the surgery my body so desperately needed. I survived—and I got to come home to my children.

I don't say this lightly, so please truly hear me: you were my life-savers.

I think about that often now, on the most ordinary days—days when I can speak, and breathe easily, and see my children's faces clearly across the room. The ordinary has become a miracle to me, and you are woven right into it. Every one of you: the twenty-dollar gifts and the enormous ones, the named and the anonymous, the ones who couldn't give a cent but flooded me with prayers—you were part of my happy ending. You still are.

So from the deepest, most tender place in my heart: thank you. Thank you for seeing me when I felt invisible. Thank you for catching me when I was falling. Thank you for believing there would be a happy ending, and for helping me write it.

I love you, whoever you are. I always will.

With much love,

Steffanie

This is my own story, shared from the heart—not medical advice. If you or someone you love is facing a frightening health crisis, please reach out to qualified medical professionals and to the people who love you. You don't have to fight alone.