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I think the hardest part is knowing that my 3 boys are going to go to high-school, go to college, meet the woman of their dreams, walk down the aisle without their mother, start a family, and so many more milestone events, and I am not going to be there for it. I created this website to further explain our purpose behind needed to raise money for surgery. The amount of people that have checked out my website has been nothing short of amazing, and I want to genuinely thank al

By the end of 2025 Dr. Alvear had changed some things with the operation that would eliminate complications that previous patients had been encountering and provide a permanent solution to cure the SMAS going forward in all individuals. (Dr. Alvear lives in the USA but he is licensed medically in the Philipines as well as the USA.) It was just another day laying around in bed, when I heard the messenger ring tone start to play from my phone, but it wasn't just another phon

My phone rang, but it was not just a normal ringtone, it was Facebook messenger, and the only person who calls me on FB messenger is my dad, but it wasn't my dad calling, it was Dr. Alvear calling me....See I had sent him many messages and pleas and questions over the past year and a half since even before I had the procedure. I would occasionally get a "thumbs up" or a "yes" or a "no", but today he was calling me, right after I had prayed for God to lead me in the direction

At this point, I am starting to feel like a move to Virginia would be my smartest move, with how many times we have had to return. In November of 2025, my tube is in, but it hurts and is hard to use consistently, my SMAS pains have returned, my MALS pains have never went away, and things are still hard to swallow. Dr. Fowlkes tells me to come back down, he is going to fix my tube placement run a bunch of tests, and figure out what exactly is wrong with me. We load up the c

I had the procedure done February 2025. I was in the hospital for 16 days, and was still not able to eat solid foods when I left the hospital. I was told some people have a longer turn around before their body starts "working" again, and to stay positive. We went back home to Indiana, and my MALS pains started getting VERY bad, way worse than before I had this last procedure. At a follow up I asked about it, and Dr. Fowlkes told me that can happen when they fix the SMA, t

During my researching, I joined some support groups on Facebook for people that also had these very rare conditions. I will explain them how it was explained to me...imagine a garden hose laying in your yard...a big field tractor pulls up and stops right on that hose. the hose is my digestive tract and the tractor tire is the compression from those arteries,(depending which illness MALS, SMAS, NUTCRACKER) the compression does not allow the waste or food to move forward so i

It was June of 2024, my husband was a manager at Meijer. If you count the time before we moved, and the time he worked there after we moved back, he had been a manager there for 13+ years. I believe it was June 14th, I got admitted into the hospital. I weighed around 90lbs. The plan was to put in a J-tube because we knew from my previous surgeries that the G-tubes don't work for whatever unknown reason to them at this point other than that I cant tolerate feeds in them th

It was the begining of 2023, and we were back living in Indiana. My GI in Indiana, still convinced I had nothing wrong more than IBS and an eating disorder, decides my weight and nutritional levels determined by blood work were dangerously low, and he admitted me into the hospital to receive fluids and figure out nutrition. They started out with a NG tube which was extremely uncomfortable and still made me very sick. They removed it and took me to surgery to install a Peg-

It was Christmas Day 2020, and everything was going perfectly in my life. My husband, my kids, and I, loaded up and went to my parents house for Christmas Dinner. I got my usual plateful after getting the kids plates ready, and sat down to eat. I didn't get through more than 3 bites before the most extreme abdominal pain set in. Almost instantly, I started to vomit all of the food right back up in almost what looked like the exact same condition it went down in. I though

Growing up, I was always the kid that was getting sick, but nothing was ever medically detectable. I would miss countless days of school, but nothing was ever discovered. I often had pains in my stomach, pains after I would eat, and overall body pains. I was very active in sports, so I would attribute my body pain to that. The issues I had while I was eating was not ALL the time, and I would have long stretches where I did not have any issues. Fast forward into my early t

Superior mesenteric artery (SMA) syndrome is a rare, potentially fatal digestive disorder where the third part of the duodenum (small intestine) is compressed between the aorta and the SMA, causing a partial or complete blockage . It is often triggered by rapid, severe weight loss that reduces the fatty pad surrounding these arteries. Symptoms include severe abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and a feeling of fullness after eating.