A Helping Hand for Ben James

With every reason to live, Ben is fighting the fight of his life!!
 
It has come as a huge shock to all who know Ben James, and devastated his beautiful wife & children, that Ben has been struck down so quickly and savagely.

My cousin Ben is a 39yo fabulous husband to wife Betty and loving father to his boys Timmy 7 and Adrian 4.  He is a much loved husband, father, son, brother, nephew, cousin, friend & work colleague – he truly is an all-round caring good guy!!  Now is time for us to take care of him & his gorgeous family.

Having been unwell with flu like symptoms, on September 18th Ben finally decided to stay home.  Ben was told by his local doctors and the local hospital he just had a cold.  By 24th of September Ben was coughing up brown matter, so his wife took him to Bendigo Sandhurst Medical Centre where the doctor, so concerned by his low oxygen levels, immediately called an ambulance.  Ben was transported to Bendigo hospital where they discovered Ben was suffering from pneumonia.  

By 12.30am Sunday morning Ben had developed Sepsis, a life-threatening illness brought on by the body’s response to infection that causes the body to injure its own tissues and organs.  Too unstable to be moved to Melbourne, Ben was put onto life support and placed into an induced coma.

At this stage, Ben’s only real chance of survival was to be moved to Melbourne but after suffering cardiac arrest it was just too risky to move him to Melbourne.  After bringing her two boys to the hospital to say goodbye to their Dad, Betty gently held his hand and prayed for a miracle.  Unbelievably, and against the massive odds stacked up against him, Ben’s heart started to beat and he very briefly became stable enough to be air lifted to the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne where he could access medical care that could save his life.

After 3 weeks plus of  the unthinkable, with Ben’s family saying goodbye many times and even starting to imagine life without him, Ben’s doctors & family are cautiously optimistic about his survival and recovery.  Although not out of the woods yet, on October 9th Ben was successfully brought out of his induced coma for the second time and was absolutely starving!! 

Despite his medical miracle, Ben and Betty are left with the prospect of a long and slow recovery requiring many trips to Melbourne for dialysis, pulmonary specialist, physio, skin specialist, etc, etc.  The Alfred Hospital is roughly 120km from their home in Malmsbury, where Timmy still needs to go to school, Adrian to kinder and rent, electricity, water & gas bills need to be paid.  Being self-employed, there is no sick pay or holiday pay and although the Commonwealth Bank have made some allowance, Ben’s truck loan and overdraft won’t wait forever.  Betty’s employer has held her job for her, but without any other form of income Betty & Ben are very quickly going financially backwards. 

Here is YOUR opportunity to earn yourself a big fat warm fuzzy feeling!! 

Your one off donation or ongoing contributions, big or small, will make a world of difference because it will ensure that Ben has the best chance of getting healthy again and returning to play his part in supporting his family, raising his two gorgeous boys and living his life with family & friends to the fullest!!

All funds raised on GoFundMe are going directly into Betty’s bank account so she will be able to access them as soon as possible.

Thank You ❤️