Ivette "EV" Bruno suffers from Reflex Nerve Dystrophy and Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome, limiting her mobility, with continuous crippling pain throughout her body, even her eyes.

Her condition was first suspected in 2005, when mysterious severe bruising on her back turned out to be caused merely by carrying a backpack.

In 2006, after a having had a high fever, she awoke one morning unable to stand. Her feet turned blue and her fingernails black. By 2007, the act of taking a mild shower was like getting pelted with rocks.

It was some while before the general practitioners she had seen stopped insisting she was a mental case without a real illness, and recommending a psychiatrist. Only after she worked up the gumption to stop passively relying on physician "expertise" and demanded to see rheumatoid specialist did a doctor finally say, "I know what it is," providing the first glimpses of hope.

She lives with her parents in Delaware. Two of her greatest assistants in taking her mind away from the pain are Bubbles (on the right in the above photo) and Hercules (on the left), the family chihuahuas. Hercules is seen again in the photo below