Mondo fundraiser to help local firefighter’s wife

MIDDLETOWN » A gourmet pizza restaurant is stepping up to help the wife of a South District firefighter battling severe Lyme disease.

Since September of 1998 Elena Zajac of Cromwell, wife of Middletown’s South District firefighter Robert Zajac and a language arts teacher in Farmington, has suffered a host of medical issues as the result of a tick bite she never knew happened.

One of the worst symptoms came in 2009 when Zajac developed Bell’s Palsy on one side of her face.

Mondo restaurant on Main Street will be holding a “give backnight” Tuesday, donating 10 percent of revenue from eat-in, takeout and bar sales to help the Zajac family pay mounting medical bills.

Friend Amy McEwen, a floor manager at Mondo whose mother works at South Fire, will be volunteering her time to deliver to local businesses whose employees cannot come to the restaurant to eat due to work, such as hospital, fire, police and dispatch workers.

It took until 2013 for doctors to diagnose Elena Zajac with late-stage Lyme that had crossed the bloodbrain barrier after years of deteriorating health.

Zajac’s oldest son Zachary, 10, may have contacted Lyme in utero or through being bitten by a tick. He has also contracted Lyme and is fighting its symptoms with antibiotics, natural herbal remedies and probiotics.

Zajac’s husband, who also works at Cromwell dispatch and volunteers annually to organize the Adopta-Family Christmas benefit in Middletown, is also being treated for Lyme.

This week, according to friend Amy McEwen, Elena Zajac “was sent to surgery for a feeding tube to be put in place to combat malnutrition caused by infection. She has to now take a leave of absence from her work.”

While all of the donated money is appreciated, McEwen says, the family needs more help.

“We have also set up a Go Fund Me page to try the crowd-sourcing route to raise funds to keep us afloat,” Zajac said. “A Hand-up, not a Hand-out” has raised $14,804 of its $50,000 goal in a month.

View it or contribute at gofundme.com/dnl6nc.

CATHERINE AVALONE — THE MIDDLETOWN PRESS Elena Zajac is shown at her Cromwell home with her husband, Rob and their two sons, Zachary, 10, and Tyler, 8. Elena had been misdiagnosed for 16years, and was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease last year. It is unsure if her sons contracted the...