Shawn's Surgery
Some of our family and friends know that Shawn is having an abdominal surgery on March 14th.
A little back story... Shawn has extremely horrible GERD (gastroesophegeal reflux disease), in which he experiences chest pain, unbearable heart burn and other not so fun symptoms. He has dealt with this for over 10 years, and it's time for him to have some relief.
In 2011, Shawn had some testing which showed he had an erroded esophagus from all the acid back up, and he was started on a new medication. That seemed to keep his symptoms at a minimum some days, but he still suffered from GERD usually every day. About a year ago, this medication quit working and there is not a stronger medication available. We saw a specialist here in Kingman, who told Shawn to lose 20-25lbs and he would feel much better. Shawn lost 35lbs and still did not get the relief this doctor implied would happen.
This lead to us seeking treatment elsewhere, and landed us at Mayo Clinic in Phoenix. Over the past few months, we have taken multiple trips to and from Phoenix, visited with several doctors, and Shawn has had to experience some not so fun tests.
These tests showed that Shawn's esophagus is over 75% erroded, he has a hiatal hernia (where the stomach is up into his chest), and the valve between his esphagus and stomach does not work properly. This has resulted in medical bills, and we are looking at the cost of surgery.
After Shawn decided to go through with surgery, we received sad news that Shawn will not have any income during his 4-6 weeks of recovery time after surgery. The state of Arizona does not offer short term disability, and Shawn works for a family owned company and they do not offer it either. We have looked into Aflac, Colonial life, Unum, etc and they would concider the surgery a loss/pre-existing condition and will not even accept him either.
Needless to say, we are looking at suffering from financial difficulties during Shawn's recovery time.
Unfortunately, this lead to seeking help from our family and friends.
