We are David and Shaina, partners in life and in this fight. Our journey together started long before illness changed our lives. We first met in 1988 as eight-year-olds in the same elementary school class, spending our mornings and afternoons together at her mother’s daycare. We were childhood sweethearts in the most innocent way—picking each other first in "Farmer in the Dell" and forming a bond that lasted even after I left New Orleans in 1990.

Fast forward to 2002. After college, I reconnected with Shaina through a chance encounter on Classmates.com. That reconnection turned into a deep friendship, and eventually, love. In July 2004, we reunited in New Orleans for Essence Fest, where Prince was playing—but honestly, Shaina stole the show. By the end of the year, I had moved to New Orleans to be with her.

We built a beautiful life together, full of laughter, late-night TV marathons, and dreams of the future. But in May 2005, after a magical birthday trip to Disney, Shaina started experiencing strange symptoms—ones we later learned were the onset of ME/cfs. As we planned our wedding and prepared to appear on Wheel of Fortune, Hurricane Katrina hit, displacing us and our support system. The years that followed were about survival, both from the storm and from Shaina’s worsening health.

Over time, we searched the country for answers, finally finding real help from Dr. Irma Rey at NOVA Southeastern. While we’ve made progress, new challenges keep emerging. Most recently, in 2024, Shaina experienced months of intractable vomiting and severe weight loss. Despite countless hospital visits, no one could pinpoint the cause. Finally, with the help of specialists at the Fascia Institute Center and University Medical Center in New Orleans, she began to stabilize—but the medical bills from that ordeal are staggering.

Now, we are looking to take the next big step: surgery to correct Shaina’s Cranial Cervical Instability (CCI) with Dr. Paolo Bolognese at the Chiari EDS (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome) Center in Long Island, NY. This surgery has helped many long-time ME/cfs sufferers, and for the first time in a long time, we have real hope.