Richard Thomas's Memorial Fund

Elizabeth’s parents, brother and aunty flew in to LA from India on November 15th. A few days after they landed, Elizabeth’s dad had a cough and fever. He visited a local doctor and was given medication to treat his condition. However, even after the medication was completed, the cough and fever persisted. He was advised by the doctor to go to the emergency as he had developed pneumonia.

 

On December 1st, which was his 78th birthday, he was admitted to the Henry Mayo hospital for the treatment of pneumonia. During his stay in the hospital, the doctors also found that he had an irregular heartbeat. Following additional monitoring, they diagnosed him with congestive heart failure and he was treated for the same. He was discharged after 7 days, and provided with new medication to regulate his heartbeat. Back at home, he was recovering well and celebrated Christmas and New Year with the family.

 

On January 4th, he had a follow up appointment with the cardiologist. During the visit, the cardiologist found that his heart rate was elevated and immediately admitted him to the Henry Mayo hospital. They tried to bring down the heart rate with a couple of different medications, but those were not very effective. He was then administered a new medication named Amiodarone, which helped to reduce the heartrate. He was discharged from the hospital on the evening of Jan 7th. However, when he reached home, he was excessively short of breath and unable to take even a few steps. When he tried to lie down on the bed, he became unresponsive. A 911 call had to be placed and he was taken back to the hospital just a couple of hours after being discharged on Jan 7th. The doctors did some blood work and found that several of the results were significantly outside normal ranges. Additionally, they reported severe damage to the liver and kidney. This was unexpected as the test results from earlier that day were normal. He had to be transferred to the Henry Mayo ICU as his condition was critical. The doctors attributed this to a potential adverse reaction to the Amiodarone drug that he had taken to regulate the heartbeat.

 

In the ICU, the doctors worked on stabilizing him and also prepped him for daily dialysis as his kidneys were not functional. A couple of days later, he developed fluid in his lungs and had trouble breathing. As a result, he had to be put on a ventilator. On January 14th, while in the process of dialysis, he had a cardiac arrest. The hospital had to perform chest compressions and were able to revive him in 8 minutes. Unfortunately, this incident adversely affected him and he sustained irreversible brain damage. He has still not regained consciousness and is currently unresponsive. The doctors have exhausted all treatment options at this time.

From one side, Elizabeth’s family is going through enormous pain to see their beloved one go through these difficult times, and on the other side medical expenses that are being incurred for the treatment is going beyond anyone can imagine.

Though Elizabeth’s dad has travel insurance, clearly it is not enough due to the ongoing treatment that is being taken place since weeks in ICU. Every day in the ICU it is costing them around $70K and her dad has been in ICU now for several weeks.

Any generous support that can be given to help Elizabeth’s family for this great cause would help them immensely.