To help Veronica Fritsch get to the Spero Clinic, please visit her Lifefunder here.
(LifeSiteNews) — Veronica Fritsch looks like a normal 26-year-old woman, but she is living in exasperating pain. Veronica has been living with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), also known as the “suicide disease,” for nearly two years now.
Before CRPS, Veronica was a healthy 24-year-old Carmelite novice preparing to make temporary vows, but this all changed with she sprained her right wrist in December of 2022. This sprain triggered her CRPS which has since spread to her whole body. She had to leave the monastery in July 2023 because of the debilitating effects of CRPS; she needed help with the simplest daily tasks.
CRPS is a complex condition associated with the imbalance and malfunction of the autonomic nervous system, particularly the vagus nerve, where half of the nervous system, which controls most of the systems of your body like the digestive and immune systems, shuts down. The other half of the nervous system is stuck in “fight or flight,” or survival, mode, which causes severe pain. This pain can feel like you are being burned alive, electrocuted, stabbed, pierced, that your bones are being crushed within you, and many other types of pain, depending on the case.
Along with the pain, you can have other symptoms including muscle spasms that could be constant and at times so violent that you become temporarily paralyzed. Most CRPS patients also become so sensitive they cannot even be touched by others or handle weather or temperature changes due to the pain flares they cause. They increasingly become allergic to more and more things due to the body regarding everything as a threat. The symptoms for CRPS can vary since each person’s nervous system fights and shuts down differently.
Doctors do not have a cure for CRPS. All treatments offered by hospitals and pain clinics only try to treat the pain and not the cause. These treatments only seem to partially dull the pain, if they help at all, or in most cases makes the pain worse and spread it.
Medically speaking, CRPS is considered the most painful disease known to man. It rates higher than both childbirth and amputation on the McGill Pain Index (out of 50 where 50 is death, childbirth is 29, unprepared amputation is 40, and CRPS is 47). Because of the constant pain, people with CRPS usually have a much higher pain tolerance than most, but they still have limits.
Even those who know the power of suffering and believe God has a purpose for them can still struggle with fear. They can handle the “normal” extreme pain but fear the pain flares. They fear that in one of those moments they will not be able to handle the pain and end it all.
Within the medical community, CRPS is nicknamed “the suicide disease” since the constant pain leads many people who suffer from it to end their life. A study indicated about 49 percent of people with CRPS have considered suicide and 15 percent have attempted it. These statistics are much higher than the general population or people with any other type of chronic pain disease.
It won’t be long in our current society where patients with CRPS, like Veronica, will be targeted for assisted suicide as the only treatment option available. This is not something that Veronica says she will tolerate or accept as a Catholic.
Veronica says every day is an emotional, physical, and spiritual battle to move and to try to ignore the amount of pain she is in. She struggles with daily pain that is excruciating. She feels like her bones are being crushed within her, and her muscle spasms are so severe that at times she is temporarily paralyzed.
Veronica Fritsch and her family are seeking the Catholic community’s help to cover the cost of an effective 12-14 week Neurologic Rehabilitation program at the Spero Clinic in Fayetteville, Arkansas, that they hope will put an end to the excruciating daily pain.
The Fritsch family know of this clinic because CRPS is not only rare but in some cases genetic. Veronica is now the third of her family of 10 siblings to be diagnosed with CRPS. One sister has had it since a car accident at 4 years old, and the other has had it since she dislocated her elbow.
No insurance will cover the program. Dr. Katinka’s program is on average 14 weeks long and costs on average $42,000 to $64,000, but adding in the living expenses, supplements, and machines needed for treatment and continued lifelong use to stay in remission brings the total close to $100,000.
Two years ago, the local community raised the money needed to send one of Veronica’s sisters to the Spero Clinic, and her family have seen the results of this program as her sister received much relief. Now Veronica is trying to get to the Spero Clinic.
With one more daughter in need of treatment, the family and community is not able to contribute and are asking the wider Catholic community for their help and support. Veronica left the monastery with nothing and has been unable to work. She has only you to turn to for help.
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When asked what it is like to see someone he loves in pain, Veronica’s brother Francis replied, “No one should have to live with the amount of pain I see my sister in. Christ calls us to help the sick and suffering. She and all those with CRPS suffer beyond belief.”
Her sister Maria shared that “Veronica has always been such a helpful person to anyone in need, and now she struggles herself with feeling helpless. She needs assistance with the simplest tasks such as opening the refrigerator door, and it is heart breaking to watch.”
Veronica said her worst fears were realized when she learned that she had the disease.
“I felt like I had been handed a death sentence when I was officially diagnosed with CRPS,” she said. “I wanted my pain to be anything but CRPS. I had seen what it can do to a person’s body in the cases of two of my sisters. I felt like there was just no way my family, the community, and I would be able to raise the money to get another sibling to the Spero Clinic.”
She concluded: “After much prayer and discernment, I decided to put all my trust in God, make myself vulnerable, and ask the wider Catholic community for their help and support.”
To help Veronica Fritsch get to the Spero Clinic, please visit her Lifefunder here.