As many of you know, I married my person, Brian, last month and we arrived in the Dominican Republic for our honeymoon on 6/12.

Our 4th day here, Brian's left foot (the same foot they removed the big toe from last year) became swollen. This isn't super out of the ordinary for him so he elevated it and took some ibuprofen. However, the next day, what looked like a blood blister appeared and he was running a fever. We got him started on antibiotics (available OTC here) and continued elevating his foot. The following evening, the "blister" popped and we knew it definitely wasn't good so on Monday (6/20) we got in touch with his podiatrist's office at home and sent them pictures. They said to get it looked at ASAP so we went to the ER. After multiple blood tests and scans, they discovered he had osteomyelitis (a bone infection) in his foot and scheduled him for surgery Tuesday 6/20. After surgery he was hooked up to a wound vac to help remove the infection as well as IV antibiotics. And we learned that at some point he must have broken some of the bones in his foot and the pieces of bone were floating around in his foot (which they removed) they also believe he had an internal abscess that burst while we were here. The plan was to use IV antibiotics to stabilize him, get him set up with a portable wound vac and send him home so his regular podiatrist can perform a partial amputation to remove his 2nd toe.

We were originally supposed to head home Thursday 6/22 but they didn't expect Brian to be stable enough to make the trip home for AT LEAST an additional week. So Christine & I had to find a new hotel to stay on 6/22, luckily we found one right next to the hospital. That morning he had an ultrasound on his left leg and the doctors said they were going to need to do another procedure 6/23 to re-examine the tissue, see how he's healing, and set up a proper wound vac (the first one was just thrown together in a pinch) At that point we knew Brian would need another procedure on Monday or Tuesday to close up the the surgical site some to prepare him for travel so we could hopefully leave Thursday 6/29.

However on 6/25 Brian woke up with severe stomach pain, nausea, and sweating like crazy even though his temperature was 95.8. He had blood in his urine (that started the night of 6/24). He saw a GI doctor who ordered tests and labs. However, he started vomiting around 3:00pm that day. And then little after 6pm, he vomited blood. They did a scan of his abdomen then moved him to ICU so he could be monitored more closely. He vomited blood a couple more times that night.

6/26 they did an endoscopy and found several bleeds in his small intestine and "clipped" them. He is still in ICU. If he throws up blood again they will need to do a second endoscopy. He will still need one more surgery on his foot before we can leave, but that is dependent on the GI issues.

As you can imagine, this is not the honeymoon we had hoped for, but we are trying to make the best of things. ICU visiting hours are 10am & 4pm and we can only stay in short increments one at a time, so we don't get to see him for long and he can't have his phone in the ICU so we also have no way to communicate after visiting hours. This has been incredibly stressful for all 3 of us and the added expense of an additional week stay and changed flight fees, on top of an unknown amount of hospital bills is not how we planned on starting our life together. I have created this GoFundMe at the urging of many friends and family to help with the medical bills and added expenses of being stuck in the DR until Brian is stable enough to travel home. If you find yourself able to contribute anything, we would be eternally grateful, no amount is too small. We appreciate your thoughts, prayers, love and support.

Here's a picture from the honeymoon before our hospital adventure began!