Virginia Beach resident, Tina, has a motto:
“I’m more than a conqueror!”
Her medical journey began in 1993 when she started to experience the swelling of various parts of her body. Doctors told her it was probably caused by allergies or hay fever, but could not give her a conclusive answer for what was happening. 16 years later, she was finally diagnosed at John Hopkins Medical Center with hereditary angioedema, or HAE, a potentially life-threatening genetic condition.
If that wasn’t enough for one person, as a result of her HAE, Tina was diagnosed with Graves disease, an autoimmune condition that causes an overproduction of the hormones produced by the thyroid. She was told that a minority of patients go on to develop thyroid eye disease, or TED–and unfortunately, Tina fell into that margin.
After two years of treatment for her Graves and TED, Tina was threatened by the loss of vision, and that’s when she began looking for answers, which she found at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center.
She drove 700 miles by herself to make her appointment, but was left scrambling when she was told that the surgeries she needed to save her sight required air transportation, an expense Tina was ill equipped to meet.
Luckily, she found the Angel Flight website during her research on affordable medical transportation. After contacting Angel Flight and explaining her dilemma, the trip coordinator, MJ Sablan, quickly connected her with a flight to Michigan for her first eye surgery. After several trips, Tina exclaimed Angel Flight was a godsend.
Tina has not let her illnesses hold her back. She graduated from Tidewater Community College in 2011 and plans to attend nursing school. After a number of surgeries, Tina is now Graves’ free–proving that she is truly is “more than a conqueror.”
To read more about Tina’s story and other developments with the Angel Flight Program.
