Dublin woman Denise Ryan has revealed how Lyme disease left her bed-bound and unable to eat or dress herself.
The 34-year-old started getting sick not long after she moved to Toronto to start a new life for herself.
Denise was due to start college when her illness progressed and she was forced to move back in with her parents in Dublin.
She became reliant on her mum and dad to shower, get up and down the stairs and get dressed and had to be fed through a tube.
Her weight plummeted to just five stone and she lost all her hair.
"Life-wise, going from living half way across the world in Canada to a month later being back in Dublin, bed bound in my parents house, vomiting all day, being in horrible pain and experiencing incontinence and crushing fatigue was a real shock," she said.
"In 2014 I was diagnosed with late stage Lyme disease and it's co-infections, in 2016 I was diagnosed with severe gastroparesis (stomach paralysis), severe osteoporosis, muscle wasting and malabsorption."
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"I've developed crippling fatigue, arthritis, heart complications, along with speech and memory problems from Lyme disease spreading to my neurological system and it's now effecting the function of my left eye."
Denise has been unable to find any doctors with the expertise to help her in Ireland and so has had to travel over and back to Seattle for treatment.
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"Spending years trying to find doctors in Ireland that could help me, I learned the hard way that there were none and that healthcare here it so far from what it should be," she went on.
"No-one should have to travel 4,520 miles for healthcare. But this is the situation I'm in so I'm trying to focus on doing to do what I have to do and not let being angry and so frustrated and heartbroken at everything stop me from getting the treatment I desperately need to save my life."
She is asking for help to fund further medical treatment in the US.
"Before I got sick I never asked anyone for help with anything, but if I don't ask for help now, my prognosis is terminal," she said.
You can donate to Denise's Go Fund Me page here.
