With Me or Not With Me — I’m Going Home,” will have a chance to reach the public in a way that she wasn’t able to, she said. “It’s something that for me I know will make the world a better place.” She’s the first to admit her first go at the project was, in many ways, a disaster. Her first effort had nothing but a video camera and a lot of good intentions. She made a short video of herself wearing a pair of glasses, saying she was sick and needed $10,000 for her medical expenses. Then, she got a friend to help her upload it to Facebook and YouTube. The video went viral, with people from Australia and Germany even sharing it and reposting it in their own countries. The next morning, she said, her cell phone was ringing off the hook with media asking about her, her medical status and the video. Her story became a subject of discussion on morning shows, and it made the front page of the Daily Mail. “It was a pretty awful experience. … I’m not saying it was all bad — there was some really beautiful feedback,” she said, noting that the person who set up the video received more than $200 in donations in just two days. A few weeks later, after the attention had died down, the video was taken down from her website, she said. It turns out, that wasn’t her choice. Someone else — a person who had posted that video with a similar goal — sued her. She eventually had to delete the entire website and start from scratch. She’s also had problems getting access to her email account. She was never supposed to access her email while the case was ongoing, but she has managed to break into it a number of times, she said. She said she’s also had people send her letters pretending to be “Laura Schroff from Google” offering to donate $10,000 to her if she would meet them in a certain location, she said. Her story caught the attention of The Wall Street Journal, which featured her on the front page of its business section in April. As of Monday morning, the front page story was no longer available, but another story about her was still on the website. She says her attorney is dealing with the matter with the paper, and said he has no doubts that he can convince the paper to retract it. As for the current media interest? She has no idea what’s going to happen with her story now. “It is a little scary,” she said. “It’s really scary.” Contact Lindsay Kastner at lkastner@freepressmedia.com or at 802-385-4276. Follow her on Twitter @FreePress_Lindsay.