Please help Stephanie with her spinal injury

Stephanie is a 27 year old female from Oregon. She desperately needs help to pay off medical bills for a spinal injury. She has a ruptured disc in her lower back, which is one of the most painful areas in the spine to have a ruptured disc. She has also been recently diagnosed with degenerative bone disease. Her father has degenerative bone disease and has passed it on to her, unfortunately. What this means is if her disc doesn't heal eventually it will wear down to nothing and the two vertebrae will grind against one another. Her father already has several vertebrae that have no disc between them, so they are grinding against each other. She desparately needs to find a way to heal this disc, so it will last as long as possible. She has been to numerous doctor, and neurosurgeons to try to get some help. A surgery where the doctor shaves off the disc that is protruding is not possible for her, because the disc is bulging toward the back. If the disc were to have ruptured out the side of the spine, then they could go in and shave it down. Unfortunately, because she is so young doctors don't want to perform a spinal fusion because in 5-10 years a disc above, or below could break down. In other words, she'd end up with another ruptured disc, and another spinal fusion would be needed. Spinal fusions are irreversible, so it's not a good idea for someone so young to have such a invasive and risky surgery. Because she can't have surgery, she is in pain constantly. She has tried every option and alternative that the doctors have instructed her to do, but to no avail the pain hasn't been subsiding.

The medical bills have gotten out of control, and she still needs to have more treatments performed. She needs more injections, and she needs to get some acupuncture, two to three times a week. She can't afford to pay upwards of $200 a visit for acupuncture, and the injections are quite expensive. A rhizotomy has been discussed, and if she were to have a rhizotomy it would be $10,000, which is not covered through her insurance. It would relieve the pain for her for 2 to 5 years, or maybe even forever relieving her pain. Some of the medical bills have already been sent to collections, she owes in the thousands, and with interest she is looking at $30,000 of debt if all her bills are eventually sent to collections. Every month more bills are being sent to collections, gaining interest as each day passes.

In edition to her back injury, she has recently been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, agoraphobia, and anxiety disorder, which does not permit her to leave her home alone. She can't work due to the pain she is in, but as well as the PTSD, anxiety disorder, and agoraphobia prevent her from working. She can't afford to see a therapist, so if she can get some help, she plans to see a therapist to try to recover from her traumatic events she has endured. The PTSD, and anxiety are not related to her back injury, but caused from sexual abuse, and sexual assault. As well as physical, emotional, and verbal abuse until she was 19 years old. Dealing with the pain, and medical bills has caused her anxiety to worsen. Please help her in her time of need to pay off her medical bills, and also to help in her recovery not only from her back injury, but also from her unresolved traumatic events.

She is a freelance graphic designer which allows her to work from home, but with the anxiety and stress she has been under, she hasn't been able to perform very well to keep her business running. About a year ago her computer broke down, and the motherboard was ruined. So, she has been relying on a netbook, but in the last few months it's been causing a lot of problems and she even lost some graphic work that she sunk hours into making, and it was lost. A lot of files have been disappearing on her netbook, which indicates there could be a problem with the harddrive, or the motherboard. Anyway, she needs a better piece of equipment to work more efficiently. She would like to buy a macbook pro, and adobe photoshop suite, so she can work faster, and provide better quality work for her clients. Because she has had computer problems, she has lost clients because they can't wait for her to work through her computer issues. The netbook has very limited capabilities, and often freezes up, or even crashes due to the very low memory, and virtually no video card exists on her netbook. Macbook pros are the best piece of equipment for a graphic designer.

Please help her in her time of need to pay off medical bills, and also to get a better laptop for her freelance graphic design business. She would be extremely grateful, and appreciative for any help you may be able to provide.

She also requested that the minimum donation amount to be $3. She thinks that is affordable for just about everyone, and of course larger contributions are greatly appreciated as well.