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Stand by Gary in His Time of Need

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Hi, my name is Jessica I have arranged this GoFundMe for my uncle, Gary Tennant.... here is his story.

Gary unexpectedly passed out in his driveway one evening and ended up in the ICU within hours, his potassium was so high it was causing several symptoms but was the root cause of the syncope. High potassium puts you at high risk for a heart attack, so much so he was not allowed to sit up in his bed, use the bathroom at all without a catheter or do anything for himself. He spent a week in the ICU before they diagnosed him with Stage 3 Renal Failure (Kidney Failure). The doctors gave him about 6 months before he would need full time dialysis, a kidney transplant, and be unable to work at all. The doctors offered him a trial medication that could possibly lengthen that time frame but unfortunately for him, it did not. This was a route he had no choice but to take if he wanted to continue working, not just one fulltime job but also a part time job with the Postal Service. The treatment was extremely high doses of steroids all day every day. Gary is also a diabetic, so steroids usually cause extreme sugar spikes that last hours and are half the time resistant to insulin. So, you can imagine from there how this went, Gary was experiencing sugar spikes as high as 850, without eating a drop of food and drinking nothing but water. Insulin wasn't helping at all, Doctors told him just to push through and keep pushing insulin. Nothing helped bring them down.

Kidney Failure causes a lot of stress of the heart due to large amounts of potassium your body produces when trying to operate on little to no function of the kidneys. So, with his high sugars from the trial treatment to prolong the kidneys' function, on August 26th, he has a massive heart attack only 2 months into treatment. He ended up back in the hospital where he spent an entire month. Following the heart attack about 2 weeks he had a heart cath to open the blockage in his heart. During this time Gary quiet literally doubled in size, from the fluid overload that made him look like a completely different person. Once he got to a stable point, they started him back on dialysis and removed over 25lbs of fluid. At this time, he was told his kidney failure had advanced to Stage 4, getting worse instead of better or maintaining.

During this last hospital stay he drained his PTO within a week. By the time he was released from the hospital on September 13th, he advanced again to the final stage of kidney failure... the "end" stage. He was fully removed from working and placed on dialysis three times at least per week, along with Cardio Therapy to help strengthen his heart on the days he did not have dialysis. All this until he can get a kidney transplant which the odds are slim to none. As of 12/4/24 Gary has to have surgery next week to have a new port for dialysis put in because his current one is no longer usable due to a large blood clot blocking it off.

His full-time employer: The Veterans Hospital in Clarksburg, WV does not offer long term disability but has agreed to keep insurance on him but has a high out of pocket premium to pay to keep it. Gary has applied for assistance for social security/disability for his doctor has officially written him off work entirely. He has been told this can take up to 6 months, sometimes longer before getting any kind of payment to keep bills afloat. He has sold everything he can for money and has moved in fulltime with his sister, Tabatha, mother Jane, niece Janelle, her daughter Brynlee and nephew Jacob. Times are tough for everyone right now; we don't want to ask for help, but it has come to a point where we don't have an option but to do so. Any amount donated helps and know not only is Gary Allen so appreciative, but us, his family as well, as we are helping as much as we financially can as well. All proceeds are going towards Gary's monthly bills and gas for him to go to his treatments. We are hoping to plan a fundraiser following the holidays as well for anyone who may be interested. Thank you so much for reading and taking the time and donating. You are a part of his treatment as well as the medicine <3
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Donations 

  • James Shultz
    • $200
    • 1 mo
  • Michael Howard
    • $300
    • 2 mos
  • Barbara Kirby
    • $200
    • 2 mos
  • Cheryl Bennett
    • $100
    • 2 mos
  • Jill Tennant
    • $50
    • 2 mos
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Organizer

Jessica Allen
Organizer
Blacksville, WV

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