SOS - Save Our Sorensen (Tom's Mom!)
Hello all!
We're trying to scrounge up some money for our old friend and all-around good guy, Thomas Sorensen. It seems his mother, Lonnie, is ill, and requires costly antibiotics that will drain her and Thomas of their remaining funds. About $2000 worth.
If she doesn't receive this medication, the infection will kill her. She has no choice but to pay for it, thus leaving Thomas and Lonnie without anything to "pay the bills" - including the upcoming bill for surgery she just underwent. To make matters worse, Lonnie has a node in her long which might be cancerous and she'll need to get tested for that once she heals, and perhaps even undergo more costly medical procedures.
I don't think I could appreciate the gravity of the situation, except, as many of you know, my Dad was recently diagnosed with stomach cancer. If you've been fortunate enough to never have had a family member or loved one in a life-threatening medical situation (as I was until very recently), count yourself lucky and consider donating whatever you can afford to help assure Thomas the blessing of keeping his mother with him.
If you have had a loved one in a situation like this, then you know how frightening it is, and you can imagine how much your support would mean to Thomas and Lonnie.
If you're fortunate enough to live here in the wealthiest nation on Earth, please consider making a donation. Our goal is to raise $2160 to cover the cost of the antibiotic (we're shooting for $2160 because gofundme.com and their credit card processing partner take about 8% of donations to cover their costs and all that). If we can get 108 people to donate $20 - the price of dinner and a drink plus tax and tip at a restaurant, or a few drinks at one of McKinney Avenue's bars on a Friday night - we can seriously change the life of Thomas and his mother, and everyone who loves and cares about them.
If the spirit of Christmas means anything, it means helping out people like Thomas and Lonnie when they're in need!
So please, give whatever you can -$1, $5, $10, $20, $1,000,000 - and God bless!
Hey everyone, it's Thomas, I thought I'd give a little personal message with a few details about what's going on. (You can get the whole story here (Facebook link): http://tinyurl.com/bo8h4vu )
My mother lives off of Social Security and Alimony checks (a few years ago she and I left her abusive husband, he sends the alimony checks). She used to have a job at a nursing home taking care of Alzheimer's patients but she became physically unable to continue. The job was so physically demanding that we believe it contributed in a significant way to the early deterioration of her 2 fake hips - I think this shines as an example of how she always puts all her energy into helping others, even when I wish she'd take better care of herself!
On Nov. 19th she had emergency hip replacement surgery. Last Sept she had her left hip replaced for the 2nd time and now, because the doctor said "her femur could shatter at any moment", I hurried to take time off work and fly out to be her care-taker. We expected a 3 hour surgery followed by 4 weeks of care.
Surgery went poorly - when the doctor removed the old prosthesis her entire femur split in half. The surgery took 8 hours and was the longest incision of the doctor's career (he just retired this week!). 5 days later she was released and recovery was going painfully but well.
Then out of nowhere a fever of 103.2 this past Wednesday. We rushed her back to the ER in San Diego where she was admitted. After days of testing it was determined that she had a staph infection almost identical to MRSA and was in isolation until Sunday. Doctors said if we hadn't rushed right in she would have died.
After a 7-day stay she is back at home. However, she needs antibiotics by IV 3 times a day for the next 6 weeks. She is extremely likely to develop an allergy to this particular drug so I must remain as her care-taker for the duration in case of emergency.
The medicine is costing us $52/day (Medicare doesn't cover all of it) for a total of about $2,000, but there are no other options to keep her alive. She has a little money set aside for an emergency but this medicine will dry that up. To make matters more stressful, we have not yet received any of the bills from the initial hip replacement and all the pre- and post-op x-rays and exams.
To further complicate things, during pre-op x-rays we discovered a possibly cancerous nodule on her left lung. This infection has indefinitely halted efforts to get her a PET scan to determine whether or not it is cancer and she needs additional surgery.
I am currently searching for some sort of part-time job to help pay the bills while I am here since we've run out of money!
Now you know the story! Any little bit helps! Thank you all very much for taking the time to check out this page and read all this, it really means a lot.
Merry Christmas!
~Thomas
Oh, P.S. My mother's name is Ilona (her nickname is Lonnie) Small!
