My name is Cassie Stutzman. I am generating this fundraiser to help ease the burden of costly medical expenses and assist with the expenses of daily living for Aaron (Big A) Freeman and his family during the lengthy post-op recovery process following CABG surgery.

Exactly one year ago, Aaron was in and out of hospitals seeing multiple specialists with multiple procedures and surgeries performed due to a Histoplasmosis infection in his lungs.

On July 30, 2024, Aaron had a heart attack and went into cardiac arrest. He was stabilized at FHS and was then shipped to Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center where he had emergency surgery with two stents placed. After stent placement, Aaron began to improve until February when he began to get short of breath. For approximately one month, he kept working and pushing on, hoping things would improve, but they did not. On March 12th, he saw the cardiologist who had him come back the following day for a nuclear stress test. The stress test revealed results they did not want to hear. He was admitted to SMRMC on March 17th and was scheduled for a heart cath the following day. The heart cath revealed there were severe blockages to the stents that were placed, and he was transferred to North Oaks Hospital the same day for evaluation for bypass surgery. He spent almost a week in North Oaks Hospital before doctors were able to get his labs stabilized for CABG surgery. On March 26th, he was finally able to have bypass surgery. The doctor initially projected surgery to be a 4-6 hour procedure, though it ended up being 8 hours due to the severity of blockages, and a triple bypass was needed.

Aaron has been out of work for 3 weeks now and is projected to not be able to return for another 8-10 weeks. His wife, Carrie, has also had to miss multiple days due to being at his side throughout this. As I have stated many times before, Aaron is one of the most selfless and generous men that I have ever known. He works so hard for his family and would help anyone out with anything without an ounce of hesitation.