My name is Lindsey Elliss and I need help moving to a dryer climate where the hope is I will have less pain and fewer falls.

I've been told the way Kansas weather is I will be in constant pain due to its massive changes. Doctors have told me getting to a drier climate is the only way to help control some of the chronic pain. They also hope going to a dryer climate will help with my mobility issues. My issues of pain and mobility at times are so bad that my husband jokes that I'm better at predicting the weather than a weatherman. We can tell a shift is coming simply by how much the pain makes me cry and fall.

I have had five back surgeries: 

In 2010 and 2016 each, I had a microdiscectomies in my L4-L5 region.

On March 15, 2019, I had a fusion of the C6-C7 in an effort to repair damage done to my spinal cord due to Myelomalacia. Unfortunately, the damage has not healed and the nerve damage caused is now permanent. I drop things randomly, have pain going down my arms that feels like a knife is cutting my arm in half, and I can't move my arms above my head. I'm 43 and I can't dress myself. I also can't carry anything important as I can't predict when my hands will spasm and drop what I'm carrying.

On April 1, 2019, I had another fusion, this time of the L4-L5, just two weeks after my cervical fusion. Eleven days later, I was admitted to the hospital septic and dying. That Friday and Saturday were spent stabilizing me for yet another surgery. 

That Sunday, I had a procedure called a debridement done to remove staphylococcus aureus. I was told before the surgery that since it was in the surgery site working its way outward, I got the Staph during surgery. After Surgery we found out the infection reached my epidural space. Just outside of it to be exact. Tissue, muscle, nerves, skin and infection all had to be removed. I had to have antibiotics for eight weeks via a PICC line, plus oral antibiotics for a month afterwards.

I spent a week in the hospital then a month in a physical rehab learning how to walk again in the hopes I could at least use the bathroom by myself. I can't.

It's now 2021, and I've been in chronic pain ever since. I've recently gotten a nerve stimulator placed to help block the pain in the lower half of my body, but as it stands right now, I can't feel my legs. Despite a cane and a service dog (still in training), I fall often which has caused additional problems via bone breaks, injury to muscles, etc., especially when I'm on stairs or on concrete floors. I've been hours on the floor whenever I couldn't get up on my own and no one else was home. I use the wheelchair whenever I possibly can, but the house we live in isn't set up for wheelchair access.

I went from being someone who worked full time to help support my family, to being on disability, unable to dress myself, go to the bathroom alone, shower or wash my own hair, or even get myself out of bed without help. My last physical assessment for disability put most of my physical skills towards work in the never to occasionally grouping, which is the lowest of four possible categories. My disability is based on the damage in my spinal cord at the cervical level, and the damage done by the Staph infection and the removal and disruption of my nerves because of it. Training our service dog has been put on hold due to my lack of mobility and my complete inability to pay a company to do her training. I'm in debt by 15k.  I have to have multiple appointments during the month which just keeps adding to the bills. And now I'm faced with yet another surgery to fix a torn rotator cuff from a fall down the stairs that happened last December.

Then because Murphy's Law is a constant on the 27th of May, a lady tried to turn left from the right hand lane. The main problem was I was in the left hand lane. My van is totaled and unfortunately not worth much.

Please help if you can, share if you can't, and thank you for taking the time to read my story.