Ethan's Medical Fund

My brother, Ethan, began experiencing abdominal pain on Saturday. He recently started a new job and is on a 3 month probation period where he is not covered by health insurance, so he declined medical evaluation, believing (and hoping) he had food poisoning.  He still was not feeling better after 5 days and had missed 3 days of work, his employer told him that he needed a doctor's note in order to keep his job. 

He finally went for evaluation on Wednesday at the behest of his employer and was found to have appendicitis that had ruptured, causing a severe infection in his abdominal cavity called peritonitis. Fortunately, he avoided going into septic shock and will survive, but still required an emergency appendectomy along with extensive irrigation to clean out all the infectious material and will remain hospitalized for 7-14 days, according to the surgeon who performed the operation. He is getting heavy duty, broad spectrum antibiotics to help his body heal from the infection. He is doing everything he can to avoid post-operative complications to get healthy and get out of the hospital as soon as possible.

Throughout this entire ordeal, his only concern has been financial. The stress and anxiety that this illness has caused wears more heavily on him than the substantial pain from the infection, operation, and post-op recovery. I spent the first couple of days with him at the hospital, attending to his needs and seeing the pain in his eyes. He is fearful that he will need to sell his home in order to compensate for his medical expenses. To make matters worse, he has a physical job that he will not be able to return to for at least 3 weeks.

I am asking for any help that can be offered towards my brother's medical expenses. It is not clear what the total bill will look like and we are working with a financial counselor to keep the cost as reasonable as possible.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my brother!