Love is Blind Fundraiser for Lori Paul

This is an event to raise funds for the Paul family to help with Lori's brain surgery. We need everyone possible to attend, please RSVP if possible.

We are also still looking for donations of raffle prizes to help make this a huge succes, Rodney's will be donating a portion of all food purchased to help Lori.

The fund raising event will be held at Rodneys Barb-Q in New Hope on May 24th 6-9 pm

Bowpop will be raffling a $25 Gift Certificate!

Many other businesses will be providing raffle prizes and door prizes, a portion of all the food purchased will go to the Lori Paul fund.
Zonkers coupons and North Paulding Networking are sponsoring this event.

Lori Paul has been married since 1999 to Joe Paul, a Smyrna fire fighter.
She is a mother and homemaker with 4 small children ages 9,8, 7&7 one child is special needs.

The Paul Family Story:

Joe works 24-hour shifts every third day at the fire department and supplements the family's income working shifts at the emergency room.
Lori helps supplement the families income by marketing and promoting their small business CitruSolution Carpet Cleaning of Paulding County.
Lori manages the business and Joe does the actual carpet cleaning.

Lori was diagnosed in 1999 with a benign tumor called meningioma on her right optic nerve sheath. She received radiation treatment in 2000 to shrink the tumor and slow the growth.
Surgery was not considered at the time, as the immediate result would have been blindness to her right eye.
Yearly MRI's showed very little growth. However, in 2008 Lori noticed changes in her vision. By the end of that year, the tumor’s growth resulted in total blindness in the right eye.

Presently the rapid growth of the tumor into the socket made it necessary for Lori’s right eye to be sewn closed.
Her doctor at Emory has decided that Lori's best option is open craniotomy, a radical surgery that requires the draining of all her spinal fluid, removing 1/2 of her skull. The area of Lori‘s brain that must be disturbed controls, among other things, motor coordination and speech.
The likelihood of being left with some deficit very high with this procedure. And life long neuro pain is probable.
Along with this comes the possibility of not being able to care for her children or assist in the financial support of her family.

Through research on her own Lori has found surgeons in other parts of the country that do a less radical procedure with much better long term results, the procedure is called a supra orbital craniotomy that requires removing only a small piece of bone over the eyebrow.
She has sent her records to a physician in California, he believed that she would be a great candidate for this procedure, with cost, with the exception of travel expenses being the same.
Lori was sure that she would get approval from Blue Cross Blue shield to have the procedure.

As it turns out she was turned down because the Doctor was out of network, all efforts to appeal met with denial.
The procedure was deemed medically unnecessary based on the remarks of the Emory surgeon, so out of network was also denied.
Lori has since found more doctors outside of Georgia that do the procedure and accept Blue Cross Blue Shield.
She has prepared to start the battle again to get BC/BS to pay for the procedure out of network.

Many of Lori and Joe's friends have been raising money the last few months to assist with travel expenses and medical co-pays.
The latest outcome was met with not only tears but anger by their many friends.
Lori's condition is rapidly deteriorating and Joe has had to give up his extra jobs to care for Lori placing the family in financial distress, some of the funds raised have had to be used for household expenses.
This is very distressing to Lori to see the funds dwindling and her dreams of life
retuning to normal getting further out of reach as they battle the insurance company and the medical system daily.

Lori and Joe have been very active in the small business community for years, helping any way they can to help others be successful.
Lori was always one of the first to lend a helping hand, ask any of the vendors at the local farmers market.
She also helped out at Paulding Meadows this last year, incredible since she has spent the last year in pain.
These wonderful activities have come to an end in the last few months a she has spent a lot of time bed ridden and fighting for her procedure.