Our Story

Nadine & Bradey's Story

Hello, my name is Nadine Michaud. This is our story and why LymeConnect came to be.

In 2018, I was living my dream as a stay-at-home mom, enjoying every moment with my family. We were raising our children in a picture-perfect small town in New Hampshire. Rural living allowed us to live next to beautiful woodlands and our children loved playing outside and on our lawn. The children were all happy and seemingly healthy as we all enjoyed each day.

My husband’s work led us to California while my children were 8,6 and 2. For three months, it was a magical time in the beautiful Orange County. A week leading up to the day our lives changed, my mother’s intuition was telling me some subtle signs that something was ‘off’ with my eldest son, Bradey. Almost overnight it felt like he was getting frustrated easily, had developed a slight eye tic and separation anxiety. We thought maybe the stress from the move may have been causing this.

We were enjoying a lovely family evening on the 4th of July, watching the fireworks, when Bradey suddenly didn’t feel well and wanted to go home. I could never have imagined when I tucked Bradey in bed that night, that this would be the night that our world got turned upside down and that his childhood would no longer be. The perfect storm had begun, and it was many years before he would feel well enough to enjoy his toys again or play with other children. His siblings missed him very much and wondered what happened to their brother that went from playing sports, being social, in school every day, happy, smiling, silly boy full of laughter to being mainly confined to his bed with symptoms that once they came, did not go away until we found our proper help years later. Some symptoms included difficulty breathing, not enough energy to leave his bedroom, constant dizziness, blurred/double vision, constant flu-like feeling, depersonalization, loss of cognitive functions. Some signs we missed when he was very young, that we now know correlate to Lyme Disease are restless leg syndrome and HSV in his eye that developed in earlier years.

Bradey’s condition worsened with each passing day and trying to find answers became a 24/7 focus. It was a never ending merry go round of doctors and tests. Finding a tangible explanation for his rapid decline felt hopeless at times as the endless tests never seemed to give us answers. To cheer myself up one evening, I was going through old photos from happier times, when I noticed something in an old picture of Bradey. It was a perfect looking bulls-eye rash on his upper thigh. Alarm bells went off – finally we had the beginnings of a possible answer for his illness – Lyme disease. We travelled to see LLMD’s around the country, On the one hand we were relieved to finally be getting answers, guidance and most importantly help. On the other it was a heartbreaking journey of trying all that they advised from oral antibiotics for months, endless supplements, ozone, acupuncture, IV’s full of vitamins 2-3 times per week for a year and a half, but nothing helped, and he was still getting worse. We learned about toxic mold, and we were educating ourselves about the correlation of toxic mold activating/triggering dormant Lyme Disease. We tested the home and had extensive mold testing done on Bradey. It was an unfortunate perfect match. We moved houses, threw away all our possessions but it was still not enough.

We were running out of options, hope and money due to health insurance not covering any of the treatments needed for Bradey over the years. In 2022, a friend who had known Bradey since we first moved to CA, and who had witnessed the overnight deterioration of his health, set up a Go-Fund-Me for him and she called everyone she knew to try to help. The generosity of strangers will forever live in my heart. It was the first time I had felt a sense of hope again and I will always be grateful for their incredible kindness. During this time, I received a life-changing email. Doctor Wolfgang Renz who was based in Germany had been shown my son’s story and he offered to help him! His background in Oncology and target chemotherapy protocols had shown great promise when applied and adapted for other chronic diseases – including Lyme Disease.

We took a deep breath; a leap of faith and my family went to Germany. By this point, Bradey had lost all trust and faith in doctors, but Dr. Renz quickly won him over with his nontraditional, fun, silly sense of humor and comfortable bedside manner, making him laugh during difficult times. Within a few treatments, my son was starting to feel better! It seemed truly unbelievable to watch such huge progress in such a short amount of time. Within three weeks, Bradey’s symptoms were improved beyond recognition. He was that happy, smiling kid again full of life and energy that I hadn’t seen in a very long 4.5 years.

I will forever be grateful to Dr Renz and his wonderful team who welcomed my boy and made him feel so incredibly special. The connection with Dr Renz changed our lives forever. This had been years of a lonely and overwhelming road so to have strangers wanting to help us, and most importantly, a doctor wanting to help us, that not only believed us but giving us the hope that his team would not give up on my son, shows how incredibly important being CONNECTED is during these difficult times. I knew I had to somehow find a way to give back and raise awareness of his approach to help other people. With this, I welcome you to LymeConnect. Where hope lives and where life’s challenges appear less daunting when we feel connected.

Nadine and Bradey