Who is Dana & Why Dish?

Hi, I’m Dana… but I’m better known online as blogger behind The Broke-Ass Bride. I started my blog in 2008, as a real bride chronicling my wedding planning journey on a broke-ass budget… and it has since evolved into a surprising yet utterly perfect career. The Broke-Ass Bride inspires thousands of brides in 140 countries to think outside the box, turn obstacles into opportunity, and use their creativity as currency to craft bad-ass weddings and lives. My passion for this is inspired by years of experience with my own personal obstacles.

Here’s the bulletpoint rundown, to keep things brief. If you want the whole story, you can find it below the line.

The problem
♥  When I was 19 I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Uveitis.
♥  My immune system doggedly attacks my eyes causing inflammation, visual disturbances and blurriness. It is incurable and will cause blindness if left untreated.
♥  I also have a very rare deep-tissue form of a disease called Granuloma Annulare, causing a different type of inflammation in my foot, for which I had surgery last year. It is so rare, I am unable to find a doctor who knows how to treat it moving forward.
♥  I’ve had 11 surgeries (8 of them in just the past 5 years), to control my diseases and their side effects.
♥  Last month my left eye came out of remission and I’ll be having a 12th surgery.

My surgeries and ongoing care (even with health insurance) have left piles of bills in their wake, and I am now at a point where, without help, I cannot pay for my medical care.

The solution
Our (amazing) friends in the online community have encouraged us to hold an online fundraiser, but receiving without giving isn’t really our jam. To that end…
♥  We’re compiling beloved comfort food recipes and the stories behind them from the most bad-ass bloggers and beyond… available in varying forms, in exchange for donations to my medical care.
♥  There are incentives for varying levels of donation, which you can learn about here.
♥  The recipes, photos and stories will be teased here on our Dishing for Dana blog, and once a donation is processed, a password to access the full recipes will be released to each donor.

The Goal
♥  $13,000 to cover my current medical bills
♥  $6,032 to cover our health insurance premiums for the remainder of 2011
♥  $2,000 to donate to the American Autoimmune Related Disease Association toward helping others with autoimmune disease
For a total minimum of $22,000.

Note that this does not include the costs that will be related to my upcoming surger(ies) and ongoing care, nor for prescriptions or post-surgical supplies such as gauze and tape for my eye patch, or prescribed drugs to aid the healing process and protect from further inflammation and prevent infection, etc.

The Details
♥  You can donate any amount you choose, no minimum, no rules. Because every quarter is a quarter more than we had yesterday. It all adds up.
♥  We will donate 10% of all proceeds up to our goal, to the American Autoimmune Related Disease Association, so every dollar contributed not only goes toward my medical care, but also toward researching a cure to benefit everyone with autoimmune disease.
♥  Anything raised in excess of the goal will be split 50/50 with the AARDA – our portion of which will be saved in a dedicated, interest-bearing account toward any future surgeries and ongoing medical care.

So, please take a look through the site, learn about the recipes (and the stories behind them) that our amazing friends in the blog community have shared… and please consider making a donation to our cause. Having this autoimmune disease has formed me into the creative, ambitious and irrepressible woman I am today, and it inspired the birth of The Broke-Ass Bride. While no one can yet cure me, the idea that my online community could rally up to ease my condition’s painful and limiting financial side effects… well that gives me hope beyond expression.

Thank you!

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As promised…. The Long Version……

At age 19, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that affects my eyes. Basically, my immune system confuses my eyes for foreign objects and relentlessly attacks them as if they were a tumor, bacteria or a similarly undesirable interloper. The result is chronic inflammation inside my eyes – which, when untreated, causes irreversible damage and, often, blindness. The most common treatment for inflammation is steroids, so for many years I used took steroid pills. Not “pump it up” steroids, silly. The other kind.

I’m what doctors affectionately call a “steroid responder” – meaning I’m hypersensitive to the drug and, consequently, its myriad nightmare side effects are highly exacerbated. Some of steroids more charming side effects include anxiety, mood swings, puffy face, weight gain, insomnia, depression and even forced menopause (which I experienced at 21. Yeah… hot flashes in undergrad are less than awesome). It came to a head when one doctor prescribed an intense cocktail of drugs to counteract the side effects of a particularly long course of the steroids, and I ended up unconscious after a few numb weeks of my life, of which I now have no memory whatsoever.

As a solution, my doctors opted to inject the steroids directly into my ocular cavity instead, which kept the medicine localized, so the “only” side effects I incurred were cataracts and an ornery case of glaucoma… for which I’ve had 2 lens implants, one laser, and 3 Ahmed Implant surgeries, and still require eye drops. For 4 years, I was also prescribed a low-dose chemotherapy pill to suppress my immune system so it couldn’t attack as fiercely, in conjunction with injections every 2-3 months. Staying on the chemo any longer than that would be too hard on my body, and the injections on their own couldn’t cut it, so we needed a new plan. Serendipitously, an experimental study on a new, implantable steroid drug called Retisert was just beginning. Bausch & Lomb funded 3 years of my eye care, the drug passed FDA approval, and the implants have been the most effective treatment yet. We know when they run out of medicine because I come out of remission and the inflammation flares up, clouding my vision with floaters and threatening worse.

To date, I’ve had 10 eye surgeries and 3 laser procedures. My eyes are really, really tired.

Don’t you wish your eyepatch was hot like mine?

Randomly, last year I had another surgery, this time on my right foot. A large mass removed for biopsy, after doctors were unable to identify it via MRI. It took 10 months of testing and re-testing the tissue, but I was finally diagnosed with Deep Tissue (or Subcutaneous) Granuloma Annulare, another type of inflammatory disease. This particular form is a very rare occurrence on its own, but even moreso in adults. So rare, indeed, that I haven’t been able to yet locate a doctor who knows what to do about it. There are theories that steroids might help, but steroids (as we know) aren’t so bueno for me… so that puts a damper on that. I already have another sizeable mass in the same foot, which is likely to worsen as the weather warms.

Then, last month my left eye very rapidly came out of remission. I’ll require another implant to control the inflammation, raising the surgery toll to 12 total. Until that can be organized, I was given another steroidal injection to tide me over. There’s a good chance that it will exacerbate my glaucoma, so I’m under supervision for that in the meantime. If my eye pressure increases, I could require double-surgery: the steroidal implant to control the inflammation, and another Ahmed Valve implant, to control my glaucoma.

At least it’s better than a sharp stick in the eye… oh wait

I’ve been very fortunate to have good insurance most of the time, but I’ve, at times, had to endure some less-than-nurturing work environments to have access to that insurance. I currently cover myself under our small business plan for Broke-Ass Media, Inc. but the premiums are very high and only cover 75% of my care and generic prescriptions. Even insured, I’ve been left with a great deal of medical bill accrual over the years that despite our best efforts, we’ve been unable to control, because it’s relentless. Every year for the last 5 years, I’ve needed at least one surgery annually. So here I am, $13,000 thousands of dollars of debt, purely from my health problems.

The future of my illness is a mystery. Some people outgrow this condition in their mid-40s. Some never do. I’ll likely be managing this illness, and/or the residual lifetime side effects, for the rest of my life.

Let me be clear: I do not expect pity, nor do I deserve it. I’m lucky to have good doctors (shout out to Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA!), and a strong home-support system in my family and friends. I’m blessed to have my eyesight. Honestly, I don’t know if I would trade my illness for health, if given the chance… since it has been a key formative influence on my adulthood and I am proud of the resilient, creative and determined person it has helped me become. Ironically, I owe my debt and disease a great deal of gratitude, because it is what inspired me to create The Broke-Ass Bride, which has developed into a deeply satisfying business that is growing every single day. My (amazingly supportive) husband Hunter and I have poured our hearts and souls into the creation of that site and building our (amazing) community around it.

Growing our business…that is to say, reinvesting the money we make into the business, is impossible to do, with so much debt and more surgeries on the horizon. But, there are opportunities coming our way that, if we can continue to operate the site, would allow me to not only creatively thrive and apply my passions fully and joyously, but will allow us to create jobs for others. It would be heartbreaking to give it all up because I am forced to give it all up and go back into the corporate world, purely to support my disease and surgery habit.

I think about my future child(ren) and how I might feel if they are met with similar struggles. Quite honestly, it makes me scared as hell. I don’t pray anymore for good health…. I pray for good care. I pray to my disease and its expenses will never cripple my vision, insurance coverage, career, or my future. I pray to never again have to suffer through painful symptoms while I wait for coverage. I pray for a day when I can pay it all off. (At least the medical stuff. There’s the student loan stuff, but its designed to be paid off slow and steady. I can manage that.) I pray for help.

By paying off all of my existing medical bills and having a nest egg to ensure my health coverage, we could then create an even playing field for future medical expenses like my upcoming surgery… one we have an actual chance of staying current on. We could use the money we earn to grow our business, pay our contributors properly, launch a lifestyle site to expand our brand. We hope to create more jobs and empower and inspire more readers to turn their own obstacles into opportunity and live richly no matter what their budget.

There are no words to describe what it would mean for the community that has supported the business I started as an unlikely by-product of my disease and debt, to also be the people who help ensure its survival in the face of my autoimmune disease, and the price of maintaining my health and preserve my eyesight. Asking for this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I believe deeply in taking leaps of faith and taking responsibility for my own future. I wouldn’t be living my mission if I let fear or discomfort prevent me from accepting help.

So what do you say… will you help?

Thank you so much for reading!

xoxoxo
<3, Dana